Increasing inventory turns – the role of Lean in the Micro QC Lab

By Steve Delity

Staying competitive in this challenging economic climate is on top of the priority list for most CEO’s and top business leadership. They no longer accept large inventories to compensate for manufacturing inefficiencies and are looking at every aspect of the production process to drive out waste. To address the inventory issue, most manufacturers have embraced the concepts of lean manufacturing made famous by Toyota and the auto industry in the 1980s. Manufacturers across industries have squeezed almost every penny possible from their manufacturing process to ensure little to no waste in materials or manpower. The results have been significant.

“Automation of the micro QC lab takes rapid detection to the next level, alowing the lab to benefit from automation much like their counterparts in the analytical chemistry QC labs and in manufacturing.”
-Steve Delity

In highly regulated industries such as pharmaceutical and personal care products, the manufacturing process includes rigorous product testing for quality. Traditionally, these tests required long lead times and significant resources to perform the steps.  Companies in these types of industries have started to bring the concept of lean specifically to their laboratories with an eye to increase the speed and reduce the cost of lab quality control functions.

The micro QC lab is an area that can realise substantial benefits from the implementation of the lean process.  In most micro QC labs, the quality testing has not varied from the traditional culture method established over 100 years ago.  The test is inexpensive, but requires time for the contaminating micro organism to grow enough to be seen by the human eye.  During this time, product could be waiting in quarantine, or production could be stopped, waiting for a batch to pass inspection. This idle time in manufacturing can cost millions of dollars, and requires manufacturing to increase levels of inventory, reducing inventory turns.  When measured against lean concepts, the classic culture method falls short. Specifically, the manual culture test includes repetitive protocol steps, long incubation times prior to results, a volatile workload, manual counting and data entry steps, all of which create an opportunity for test leveling and improvement in productivity. 

New technologies in the area of rapid detection in the micro QC lab exist today to help companies realise their lean initiatives. These technologies play a strategic role in reducing the time to results, allowing product to pass quality control sooner, which reduces raw materials and in-process inventory and increases lab productivity.

Rapid detection alone solves just part of the problem. The manual process drives highly educated microbiologists to become bogged down by running tests versus focusing their data analysis and problem solving skills on more value added activities to drive business productivity.

Automation of the micro QC lab takes rapid detection to the next level, allowing the lab to benefit from automation much like their counterparts in the analytical chemistry QC labs and in manufacturing.  Automated rapid detection removes cumbersome steps in the testing process driving efficiency and productivity.

Lean processes are helping manufacturers push the envelope in an already dynamic and progressive industry by utilising new and rapid technologies.  The benefits of lean philosophies in the lab are significant. Shorter quality control cycles mean faster product release, creating the need for fewer inventories and higher inventory turns. 

For more information, please visit: www.rapidmicrobio.com

About

Steve Delity is CEO of Rapid Micro Biosystems, a leading provider of technologies that automate and accelerate detection of microbial contamination in the manufacture of pharmaceutical, biotechnology and personal care products.