Monday, 18 September 2017

Six Sigma and the Pharmaceutical Industry

Within the pharmaceutical industry, there are various IT factors when transitioning from an existing management process to a new one. In this case transitioning to Lean Six Sigma methodologies carry several IT factors.


Six Sigma, Pharmaceutical Industry, Healthcare

The Six Sigma quality improvement theory allows businesses to continuously improve and change the industry in a positive direction. Because this process is so complex, businesses will require interoperable and flexible systems that will enable information to pass across the entire business. Lean Six Sigma allows information to flow and keeps management abreast with this information.
Within the pharmaceutical industry, mining data and interpreting it both seamlessly and quickly are very important aspects of Lean Six Sigma. With the help of this methodology’s tools and theories, information is able to be transformed into data that can be used to outperform the competition. Having data as quickly as possible will also make it much easier to respond to and evaluate FDA inquiries. IT factors will support various tenets which are essential when implementing this quality improvement process.

Tents within Lean Six Sigma include:


The Integrity of Data

Data integrity is a very important aspect within the manufacturing industry, in which this business theory was first introduced. Pharmaceutical companies rely on trustworthy and accurate data in order to make wise and informed decisions. Pharmaceutical companies thus have various IT specialists and vendors who come up with solutions. Additionally, these companies will usually have various data files with customer and product information within separate IT systems and sites.

Within a lean environment, confidence is required in order to uphold the integrity of the entire supply chain. It requires a single strand of information which eliminates the chances of duplicated and outdated data. If this is not achieved, the industry runs the risk of high administration costs and bad decision-making.

Quality in the Manufacturing Process

Building quality in the manufacturing process is a key goal within Lean Six Sigma and enables the industry to successfully integrate the IT infrastructure. This further helps manufacturers to rely less on human checks and balances and more on automated ones.

Automated checks enable businesses to collect data much more quickly and are easier for regulatory agencies like the FDA to audit.  In-line data is critical to quality within this theory, enabling pharmaceutical companies to manufacture defect free products, which is essential to this industry because lives are at stake when it comes to manufacturing medicines for people. Without the understanding of these quality improvement methodologies, this cannot be achieved.

Quality within all industries is important, but within the pharmaceutical industry, it is essential.  Because lives are at stake, quality, when it comes to creating and manufacturing medicines for individuals, is necessary.  Any business theory that could help in this realm of industry is necessary to explore.  Because the Six Sigma quality improvement theory boasts less than 3.4 defects per million opportunities, it is worth exploring in any industry, especially this one!  As technology becomes more and more integrated into our daily lives, exploring these theories together is worthwhile for any pharmaceutical manufacturer.

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