Efficiency: One Step at a Time

I like to think that in a previous life (or maybe in a future life) I was an efficiency expert.

Set out a couple of tasks for me, or a couple of errands, and I like to figure out how best to approach them – what’s the best route, what will entail the least effort, what’s easiest.

But I guess most people are like that. Who wants to waste time or eff ort if you can be more efficient?

For many years, the pharmaceutical industry was rather inefficient.

But who could blame them? When profits are high, it’s ok to be inefficient – especially in your manufacturing operations. Furthermore, if your process is running and the FDA has approved it – why fix something that, technically, isn’t broken and open yourself up for another round of inspections?

The short answer is no one did it. If you were pumping out enough product to meet demand and financial goals – no one was really concerned if a batch or two was out of spec. Just toss it – and make more.

But, time marches on, economics change, and manufacturing efficiency is now the big game in town.

Perhaps the biggest advancement in manufacturing efficiency has been the introduction and ongoing refinement of continuous processing.

Continuous processing technologies allows manufacturers to eliminate the stopping and starting of processes as material is moved from one step to another. Less steps means more efficiency.

Efficiency improvements have also found their way into the drug discovery arena – companies are now using advanced data analytics to predict which compounds have the best chances of success. The mantra of “Fail early” is a good one. Eliminate the less promising compounds and focus on the most promising products.

And, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us other ways to be more efficient and improve processes.

Decentralizing clinical trials and making them more “virtual” shows promise and is an ideal way to make sure clinical trials move along as planned.

Virtual vendor visits are supplanting in person visits. While due diligence has to be done, in a socially distancing world, where projects have to move forward, a video tour/audit can be an efficient way to start a vendor/client relationship.

Finally, supply chains need a good looking at. If anything, the pandemic has shown that supply chains are more fragile than we thought, and the longer the supply chain is – the more likely problems will arise.

Efficiency will come. But, as with most change – it will come one step at a time. The key is to make the most out of each step and not waste any effort.