The pharmaceutical sector is always under scrutiny, where reputation and performance are linked directly to your ability to innovate and drive R&D.
The high costs, regulatory requirements and ethical standards involved in bringing a new drug to market means pharmaceutical companies are under immense pressure. They are driven by the need to maintain competitive advantage, ensure financial sustainability and meet regulatory and societal expectations, while at the same time leverage the latest technology.
Maintaining this competitive position in the market requires a consistent commitment to quality, ethical practices, transparency and the proactive engagement of employees.
The pressure to maintain standards
All the key players in the pharmaceutical industry already have sophisticated, robust quality management systems, documentation control, procedures and protocols. So why are they still experiencing quality problems? Perhaps the answer lies closer to home?
Many leading companies in the sector are increasingly turning towards human change initiatives to ensure they maintain the exceptionally high standards of quality required to support their global business.
But achieving impactful results from any corporate initiative can be challenging, and when it concerns a human change programme, you need buy-in at every level within the organisation. If executed well, the results can be significant, leading to increased trust and credibility, market advantage and subsequent financial gains.
Driving a personal mindset approach
Making quality personal is about hearts and minds. Ultimately, it’s about how well each one of us does our job. It is how about we see our ‘customers’ both internal and external, and understanding how they depend on us.
If I know and care about the person who depends on me, then I will pack their parachute properly, do the right checks, bring extra attention to detail, be thorough in what I do and ensure I deliver what the ‘customer’ wants and needs.
I will spend an extra couple of seconds to ensure the right part number, the right machine setting, the right label, the right version number, the right address. By bringing a personal quality mindset we have driven down human errors across a range of pharma sites.
Personal quality is about people having confidence in you, knowing that people can depend on you because your behaviour defines your personal brand and you are delivering a personal guarantee that marks your quality.
What motivates many people in the workplace more than anything else is personal success and achievement, together with the ability and empowerment to get the job done right first time. Building your own reputation and personal brand by being known as someone trustworthy who positively contributes to the business will drive more opportunities, recognition and rewards at both a personal and team level. Striving for excellence in your people and your teams may be seen as an intangible asset but it has been proven to deliver very tangible and significant results if it’s done effectively.
Making Quality Personal equals results
Making Quality Personal (MQP) is a quality-based experience that focuses on improving quality in an organisation and promoting the idea of empowering everyone to participate at a personal level.
The programme is designed to help employees understand what personal quality is about and its significance within their own role, team, department and the wider organisation. The idea of cultural change may frighten people, who are worried about their own job security. Additionally, there can be a tendency to discount its importance, particularly with many highly qualified professionals or subject specialists not willing to take the time to understand what could be achieved with cultural change. That’s why it’s so important for human engagement programmes to be handled carefully and comprehensively by senior management and focused on results.
MQP explains the concept of internal and external customers and how to enhance those experiences, including how to foster trust by thinking like a ‘Parachute Packer’. In other words, doing checks and taking pride in your deliverables, which will ultimately boost end-user confidence in your work. It also promotes the value of personal guarantees and the significance of double checking your work to help prevent errors and mistakes.
The benefits and subsequent results of deploying MQP in the pharmaceutical industry cannot be overstated. With the right enterprise-wide engagement, it will drive quality standardisation across your organisation and provides one consistent message about quality to all your employees.
And the outcomes speak volumes
As a direct outcome of MQP, errors across organisations can be significantly reduced. In particular, some of the results we’ve seen include:
- Batch errors reduced from 25 per 100 to 3.5 per 100
- Human errors reduced by 40%
- Field actions reduced from 6 per annum to Zero over a thirty month period
- First pass yield from 91% TO 97%
Looking further at examples of organisations that have engaged in MQP, one client was able to showcase an impressive reduction in its total batch errors by nearly 50%. In addition, the same pharmaceutical company managed to halve documentation errors and as a result, significantly decreased field actions. This led to millions in savings and a radical reduction in FDA investigations. This particular example demonstrates the power of MQP when undertaken correctly. This successful customer programme ran throughout the organisation, engaging individuals, teams and different sites, all with the full support from senior management. Staff were trained, mentored and coached and given on-going support after the programme.
MQP impacts the whole organisation
An additional example can be seen within a global pharmaceutical organisation where a new lead senior executive had already seen the success and impact an MQP programme could have on a business. Bringing this experience into the new role, the organisation engaged all team leaders in the process from the outset. Once the MQP training had been delivered, a coaching and mentoring programme was introduced to drive success and help embed the culture. Each department was asked to select three issues they would like to work on to improve quality, including document control due to the emphasis on traceability within the industry. The range of issues and the subsequent outcomes were impressive, with huge business benefits impacting the whole business. These ranged from enhanced warehouse processes and shorter pit shop machinery repairs to reduced mean time between running batches, therefore enhancing value adding run time.
The power of human quality
Pharmaceutical companies more and more are demonstrating that human quality plays a integral role in their future success and in achieving tangible business results. From financial performance, innovation to brand reputation and trust, a goal oriented MQP programme will bolster your business aims and drive measurable impact across the organisation.
The quality culture of your business is the cornerstone to success, and focusing now on employee engagement will reap rewards.
