Network Transformation Program for a Pharmaceutical Manufacturer

Situation

 After receiving multiple FDA warning letters, a multinational pharmaceutical company needed to improve their quality control department. 

Challenge

• No tracking of industry-standard KPIs.
• Not consistent balanced scorecard for reporting metrics from each site.
• Overtime needed to maintain high levels of on time delivery.
• Limited communication between sites’ QC departments and between QC and production.
• Little similarity among sites’ organizational structures causing inefficiency at analyst and supervisor levels.

 Approach

• Conducted an accelerated diagnostic (multi-observational study and interviews) at 4 of 14 sites
• Initiated continuous improvement programs
• Collected data from all sites for benchmarking and analysis
• Developed a network strategy for continuous improvement based on benchmark and analysis findings
• Created a balanced scorecard of metrics to for each site, using the same metrics definitions network wide.
• Introduced Lean tools to the QC labs to reduce costs and improve efficiency.

Results

• Launched continuous improvement programs with expected efficiency gains of 8-19% annually.
• Provided a balanced scorecard to each site in the network to report KPIs in a uniform manner.
• Developed a network strategy which identified many improvement opportunities within the network.

Reflaction

• The client presented the unique challenge of having very few performance metrics being tracked making baseline and target performance levels harder to quantify. 
• On projects with multiple streams and sub projects going on at once it is important to maintain communication to maximize synergies.