Tackling manufacturing challenges

By 2020, analysts predict, the pharmaceutical market will more than double to €829 billion ($1.3 trillion), with the E7 countries – Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia and Turkey – accounting around one fifth of global pharmaceutical sales. NGP looked at manufacturing units based in the north-east of England and asked Jacques Brom of sanofi aventis, Martin Inskip of Merck Sharp & Dohme Limited and Guy Wingate of GlaxoSmithKline how they are rising to the challenges of a globalised pharma industry.

NGP. The globalised pharmaceutical industry is facing many challenges, including competition and pricing pressure. How is your manufacturing unit tackling these challenges? 
GW. The global economic challenge is real and has an increasing impact on our local thinking. Our starting point is a promise to reliably supply high quality products. Quality is paramount – many of our products are medically critical and patients could die if they are sub-standard or if there is a problem with continuity of supply.

In today’s modern world, however, quality is not enough. We must be competitive, too. Our focus is therefore to build a sustaining culture that supports improved manufacturing processes and productivity whilst being unflinching in our attention to detail when making medicines. We are investing in new technology, developing new skills, and maximising the output from our assets like other manufacturing facilities, but it is the passion and commitment of our people that we believe will make the difference in the long-term to the future success of our manufacturing facility at Barnard Castle.

MI. The site has for a long time focused on a strategy of being the lowest cost supply in the corporate network, as well as delivering on reputation measures such as regulatory compliance, top quartile SHE performance and meeting targeted supply performance. In the past several years, we have done this by successful engagement of our staff and an empowering culture and practices; very effective use of automation; computer integrated manufacturing and material handling; world class packaging model and use of Six Sigma; error risk reduction; lean principles; and a culture and practice of right first time and continuous improvement.

More recently, more structured lean principles have been applied by the introduction of integrated process teams, use of visual management, new supply chain tools, cascaded metrics, value stream management and waste reduction. This has enabled the site to successfully compete for consolidation of supply to worldwide markets for four out of five major product franchises.

JB. Investment in both state of the art equipment, for example, two-person packaging lines blistering half a million tablets per hour, continual investment in training and significant investment in lean manufacturing processes have evolved to make the sanofi aventis plant cost productive against its competitors.

NGP. Through the creation of an active cluster and centers of excellence, the north-east of England has created a mechanism to share best practices through trusted intermediaries. How have you engaged in these activities, and has this added value to your business?
MI. It has been of benefit to be situated in a region where through Nissan, its suppliers and other industries, which have a lean mindset which they are willing to share, has enabled us to understand and use lean techniques and tools more easily than otherwise. The ability to benchmark, share ideas and fast track into new ways of working is useful in addition to consultants and learning from within. They also provide a vision of where we might go as an organisation and how to transform.

JB. Benchmarking is a valuable commercial tool and, when not working in competitive environments, can allow colleagues from across the industry to ‘peer review’ their success and, more importantly, understand how they have been achieved. Knowledge of suppliers, customers, service support groups etc. all enhance competitiveness.

GW. It’s probably easiest here to give an example. We have recently been looking at a series of potential investments at Barnard Castle that required access to specialist skills and knowledge. NEPIC (the North East Process Industry Cluster) provided invaluable input to our thinking. Both challenging and supportive, they helped us build a strategy that integrated our planned investments with development and recruitment of skilled staff.

NGP. Lean manufacturing techniques were largely developed in the automobile sector, but in your region there has clearly been a transfer of knowledge between sectors. This has been encouraged by the Regional Development Agency (RDA) One NorthEast and their North East Productivity Alliance initiative that is promoted within the region through the cluster. How has this impacted on your business? 
JB. We cannot under-estimate the value of lean manufacturing processes. Our plant has a continuous programme that utilises mixed teams (QA, Production, Supply Chain etc.) and trains individuals to use the tools and methodologies that deliver improved and sustained performance. Seconded managers facilitate these groups and the site results are impressive. In 2007, we saw the best productivity/yield/expense ratios ever recorded.

GW. The application of lean manufacturing and six sigma principles have been at the forefront of our thinking for many years now. We are currently looking at how to fundamentally improve our process understanding and process capability to take us to the next level of manufacturing control. It’s not an easy path but one we must take. Our task is to ensure that we implement and exploit 21st century manufacturing practices, otherwise we will loose out to alternative sources of supply elsewhere in the world.    

MI. The availability of practical learning from NEPA (North East Productivity Alliance) and PICME (Process Industry Centre for Manufacturing Excellence) was a key step in moving toward being a lean enterprise. The technique of kaizen intervention and very thorough and effective training of change agents from our plant has been significant and enabled us to gain momentum in the lean journey and gain a competitive position within the network, which realised business benefit as product sourcing was consolidated to the plant in the north-east of England. The funding available to do this type of work was very welcome and in a little way rebalanced the commercial advantages that plants in other countries have in attracting new manufacturing.

NGP. The availability of skilled people and graduates with scientific and engineering degrees is in decline in Europe. Has your unit had problems in recruiting specialists, and how are public sector support agencies in the region helping you address this issue?  
MI. It has been difficult to recruit people for a number of years with the right capabilities of science and engineering and a willingness to move into a manufacturing arena and leadership roles. The public sector support agencies together with representation from a number of commercial enterprises has made ensuring the skills are available in the future a high priority, with a good deal of success. There should be no complacency, however. Starting with schools, the efforts need to be doubled to get more children into basic science, engineering and business degrees and the vocational training for all in the industry has to be available in a flexible provision after that for all types of jobs, technicians, operators, laboratory analysts and general and specialist engineering and scientific roles.

GW. The availability of skilled resources is key to sustaining success. We have a three-tiered approach involving building the capability of current staff, recruiting for shortfalls in any key skill areas, complemented by the use of expert consultancy. Access to a ready supply of suitably qualified new graduates will be very important and we are establishing links with a variety of academic institutions. So far we have not had any big issues finding staff in north-east England but we need to keep ahead of the curve in predicting our needs so we can foster the continued availability of skills needed from universities and elsewhere.

JB. It would be wrong to say that we have not experienced difficulties in recruiting particularly engineering staff. Having recognised this, we have begun to start from the ‘bottom-up’ again. We now invest in the sponsorship of engineering apprentices. At the regional training organisations around Newcastle-upon-Tyne, selection is becoming ‘harder’ as more potential candidates become available. Also working with educational bodies such as Newcastle College, we intend to engender a new and different approach at Sixth Form level by going out and re-kindling the imagination of young people with their view towards the industry.

The pharmaceutical sector in North East England is thriving with records sales being reported, which is providing £1.7million of exports for the UK economy. For further information relating to the process industries in North East England, please contact NEPIC, the North East Process Industry Cluster on +44 (0)1642 442560 or alternatively, visit www.nepic.co.uk.

Jacques Brom is Site Director of the sanofi aventis pharmaceutical manufacturing facility at Fawden, North East England.
Martin Inskip is Senior Director of Operations, UK of Merck Sharp & Dohme Limited based in Cramlington, North East England.
Guy Wingate is Site Quality Director for GlaxoSmithKline, Global Manufacturing & Supply based at Barnard Castle, North East England.