During the past several decades, the life science industry has experienced a history of strong growth, healthy profit, and continued innovation. Solid profit margins and regulatory controls, however, have shielded most companies from the “quality revolution” that swept across and transformed the semiconductor and automobile industries. Consequently, reducing process wastes and boosting manufacturing capabilities have become secondary to meeting market, regulatory, and quality standards.
Today, the business environment is experiencing enormous changes and some CEOs admit that recent trends have them worried. The introduction of innovative drugs or medical devices that are safe and effective has become more difficult, as new discoveries seem to cost more and take longer. 1 Public and private research has drastically increased; yet, the introduction of new medical products remains at the lowest level in recent years. 1 In the meantime, investors increasingly expect the industry to meet a higher standard of performance in terms of profitability, revenue growth, and earnings.
Many companies have selected to address these pressing challenges by focusing on improving the way medical products are made using proven manufacturing best practices from other high-tech industries. For example, the semiconductor industry also demands a very low tolerance for impurities and inaccuracies in production. Through a relentless drive to improve its manufacturing process, enormous breakthroughs in production, cost, and quality have been achieved, and these techniques have since been widely adopted by other industries.
The recent competitive pressures have triggered compelling reasons for change to the manufacturing process. But, is the life science industry ready to adopt better manufacturing practices such as benchmarking the Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) and Lean Manufacturing (LME)?
This paper discusses how the life science industry can adopt the Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) concept and deploy Lean Manufacturing Excellence as an operational strategy to gain a competitive advantage. Answers are provided to questions such as: What is OEE? How can an organization improve its manufacturing capacity by tracking OEE? What changes need to take place to boost OEE? What is Lean Manufacturing Excellence? What are the 7 categories of wastes and how can we eliminate them? What are the benefits for adopting Lean Manufacturing Excellence and the OEE concepts?
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