Operational Excellence in Pharma

“The solution for most companies today can be summed up as the pursuit of excellence – superiority in operations and execution of business processes – and has come to be called Operational Excellence.

Operational Excellence, aka OpX, strives to improve quality, increase yields, speed throughput, and reduce waste. It involves most of the current business tools:

• Six Sigma,
• Lean,
• Footprint Rationalization and
• Premier Resource Management.

OpX covers all areas of a business, and requires the integration of operations management methodologies in ways that optimize people, assets, and processes. Like links in a chain, the weakest portion of a business – R&D, production, quality, sales and service, etc – determines the strength of the whole. 

No business can achieve excellence if any one of these areas is less than excellent, and a severe breakdown in any part, or the failure to integrate all the parts properly, will harm business performance and jeopardize shareholder value.

Simply making improvements in a few areas is not enough to achieve Operational Excellence. 

OpX requires a level of corporate performance that will garner praise from the investment analysts who advise the actual owners of the company. It requires using the right tools, methods, and advice and combining them with dedication to achieving true world-class status.

It requires constant work, attention to detail, and the honesty to examine one’s own shortcomings and correct them, and to never settle for what once worked, or works in some places, but constantly striving for the elusive goal of being the best of the best. 

Many factors contribute to world-class performance, but the best opportunity for achieving operational excellence is where the money is spent and made: PRODUCTION.

(Abstract from the source: “ Operational Excellence in Pharma ” by Sathi Kannan, Senior Manager, Life Sciences and Advanced Solutions, Emerson Process Management, Asia Pacific)