Piramal Critical Care is a Bethlehem, Pennsylvania-based business unit of Piramal Pharma, the world’s third-largest producer of inhaled anesthetics and a primary player in hospital generics. The company is committed to delivering critical care solutions for patients and healthcare providers across the globe.
“The variety and quality of MRC training programs is substantial. We have benefited as a result of sending more than 15 people to various sessions during the past 5 years.”
– Keith A. Zimpfer, Vice President – Site Operations
Piramal Critical Care embarked on its Lean/operational excellence journey in 2012, seeking to increase the efficiency of its production lines in order to reduce operating costs and conserve critical manufacturing space.
Solution
The company has partnered with MRC to pursue Lean Master certification, participate in our MLI program, and engage us for supervisor, Lean Culture, and Six Sigma training.
“The Lean and Six Sigma programs opened an opportunity to provide enhanced training for several team members who lead the operational excellence initiatives at our site,” says Keith Zimpfer, Piramal’s Vice President – Site Operations. “In particular, they have learned to create process maps and control charts, and to perform statistical analysis for different types of process optimization.”
“The MLI course is a very good leadership training course,” he adds. “One of our team members initially attended to evaluate it, and we have since sent six others from our leadership team. Their involvement in MLI has led to the grooming of up-and-coming leaders in all aspects of strategic leadership; specifically, in the areas of leveraging human capital, organizational culture, change management, and operational decision making.”
Results
Engineers and supervisors on the Piramal manufacturing team have benefited from MRC’s Lean and Six Sigma training by driving improvements in 5S across the Bethlehem production site. These improvements include the development and implementation of various kaizen activities, resulting in safety, GMP, and productivity enhancements. Specifically, they were able to significantly increase the output of their production lines to avoid the need for more manufacturing space. This was critical, given the limited room for expansion at their current facility.
As for the Lean Master certification, MLI, and supervisor training, a lean culture of continuous improvement was established that so far has resulted in operational savings of more than $100,000.
For additional information about Piramal Critical Care, visit their website at www.PiramalCriticalCare.com.