Why, in an industry where taking a risk makes you persona non grata, is big pharma insistent on collectively taking a huge one? For by standing still and refusing to learn best practice from other industries, that's exactly what it is doing.
There are areas in Pharma, such as technical operations, which contain processes crying out to be simplified and improved upon, with the time and money saved becoming a cash injection for other parts of the business, such as research and development. Yet Pharma ploughs stubbornly on with bad habits at the back end of the business: sticking to old, cumbersome ways and refusing to grasp the opportunities made available through lean manufacturing.
What gives Pharma its attitude? Well, intense scrutiny and regulatory pressures mean that a culture of extreme caution has developed when it comes to new ways of working. And there is a touch of arrogance – this is Pharma, you know! If our product isn’t top quality it can kill people and destroy the business. If we want to change how we do it, we’ll invent something ourselves.
But Pharma is missing a trick. There is a set of tried and tested lean manufacturing techniques that can be applied to its business to make it safer, simpler and more cost effective.
The Automotive industry followed Toyota when it realised that it had the blueprint for manufacturing the safest, slickest cars on the market. And why not? The quality the organisation had built into its new cars was phenomenal, and the Toyota team had done all the hard work and research around building compliance and excellence into every part of the complex product – something they achieved without inspecting everything to the death!
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Aimed at the international pharmaceutical and bio-pharmaceutical community, Pharma magazine covers every aspect of manufacturing from R&D to finished product. With a worldwide circulation of more than 40,000 individuals, it is the first truly global magazine for the pharma industry, bringing together the disciplines of discovery and development, the drug manufacturing process and the resultant business and management issues. For further information visit the Pharma website at www.pharma-mag.com