Life-Science Panorama

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April 22nd, 2008

The Age of Continuous Innovation

By Daniel R. Matlis

Last week, the folks at Camstar asked me to provide my thoughts before the release of their new eBook entitled “Winning Profit in the Age of Continuous Innovation

As I read the eBook I kept thinking about Heraclitus’ famous refrain: “The only constant is change.”

We are all familiar with the three-age system used to identify prehistory periods by tool manufacture and use. It took humans nearly 2,000,000 years to innovate from stone tools to bronze ones and another 2000 years to move Iron tools.

The rate of innovation increased in the 20th century. For example, it took the Manhattan project less than 5 years to unravel the destructive force of the atom; NASA took 8 to land people on the moon, and the Human Genome Project 13 to decode human DNA.

In this century, with the increasing rate of scientific knowledge, information has become ubiquitous.  Innovation has taken its place as the fuel for the growth engine.

In my opinion, we have entered the age of “Continuous Innovation”. In this Age, it is the rate of innovation which will keep societies and economies growing.

To remain competitive in the age of ‘Continuous Innovation’, leading organizations must shift away from traditional incremental innovation cycles, supported by standalone and fragmented processes and systems.

Leading organizations must out-innovate their competition by embracing proactive, cohesive and fully integrated approaches to Manufacturing, Quality and Intelligence.

eBook.bmpI recommend reading this e-Book to learn how Camstar defines “Closed-Loop Quality Execution” as the next leap forward for manufacturing quality. In the eBook Camstar provides details for this new end-to-end business process surrounding manufacturing and quality operations. Properly implementing an integrated foundation, like the one proposed, can enable accelerated product innovation while simultaneously improving quality.

April 9th, 2008

Learning from Success – 2008 FOYA Winners

By Daniel R. Matlis

Long term readers of Life-Science Panorama know that I’m a big advocate of “Learning from Success.” This common sense concept builds on the idea of “learning from failure” but accounts for the fact that life is too short to make every mistake.

During Interphex 2008, I had the opportunity to interview the winners of the Forth annual Facility of the Year Awards (FOYA) competition, sponsored by ISPE, INTERPHEX, and Pharmaceutical Processing magazine.

The wining companies and respective award categories are:

  • Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma GmbH & Co.KG, Biberach, Germany, Facility of the Year Award for Facility Integration for Pharmaceutical R&D Building project
  • Bristol-Myers Squibb, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA, Facility of the Year Award for Equipment Innovation for Clinical Supplies Manufacturing and Drug Product Technology Center Expansion project
  • IDT Biologika GmbH, Dessau-Rosslau, Germany, Facility of the Year Award for Operational Excellence for Facility for Production of Live Human Viral Vaccines IDT 201 project • Pfizer, Illertissen, Germany, Facility of the Year Award for Process Innovation for NEWCON (New Containment Facility for Oral Solid Dosage) project
  • F. Hoffmann La Roche AG, Basel, Switzerland, Facility of the Year Award for Project Execution for Bilogics IV project

I was very encouraged to hear many of the same themes as I spoke with representatives from the winning teams.

They included strategies like:

1. Develop, approve and communicate clear requirements
  The project will be mush more efficient and effective 

2. When change happens, and it will, evaluate it against strategic business objectives
  Justify decisions based on the available facts

3. Break down organizational silos by bringing multiple disciplines together 
  It encourages problem solving at the water cooler

4. Involve facility owners and production people early in the design process
  Getting the customer’s voice early and often is key to achieving business objectives

5. Integrate people, technology, quality and the environment into the design phase.
  Use your plan as a guide, but be flexible to address the unexpected

6. Develop a shared vision and norms for working together
  The team must be able to perform through good and bad times

7. Make sure everyone understands that their deliverable must fit into the overall puzzle
  Build ownership and commitment for the entire project, not specific components

8. Work Hard and Play hard
  Don’t forget to incentives and reward hard work and success 

In the coming weeks we will share lessons from their successful strategies in the 2008 edition of the “Learning from Success” series.

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