Managing Automation - December 2007 - (Page 16) 12-07 Q&A Extended Dialogue EXECUTIVE The interview below is an abridged version of a broader conversation with Jeff Schaff of Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. To listen to the full interview, and others in the Executive Q&A Series, visit www.ManagingAutomation.com/execQA Transformation, MES Style An MES project to standardize systems and processes around the world has boosted productivity and decision-making at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. Jeff Schaaf, senior director of manufacturing and tech transfer processes at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, came on board five years ago to standardize and coordinate manufacturing processes across 16 strategic sites around the world. The structured manufacturing execution system (MES) program was part of an enterprise system strategy for the manufacturing division. But starting up a worldwide MES program is not easy. Recently, Schaaf spoke with MA about the technological, cultural, and business process issues that can impact a new MES initiative. Q: How do you kick off an MES program at a large pharmaceutical company? A: We started by going to the senior management within the division and getting their buyin. From there, we went out into the user community and got participants from plants and corporate functions, such as global quality and global compliance. We had a number of meetings with those people “[Standard software to identify what their requiredesign] really is a critical ments would be, what their iscomponent of decisionsues are today, and that led us making based on data, not down through a vendor-selecintuition,” Jeff Schaaf says. tion process for software, which the user community remained very active in. The final selection was made after a weeklong demonstration period with about 50 of the users. Q: And what did they select? A: The package that we use is the PMX software from Rockwell Automation. Q: While the specific business problem at Wyeth was not having a comprehensive manufacturing execution system in place, were there other issues around worker productivity? A: There were a couple. I think every pharmaceutical company is facing the same thing. Historically, pharmaceuticals have been very manual, very paper-oriented, lots of double-checking. To meet the challenges of the future, we need to get out of that and streamline our processes. We did not have a set of standard processes that were enforced or being used across multiple sites. That makes it tough to make decisions. It makes it tough to be efficient. We also did not have standard software solutions that were used across multiple sites, which hinders your ability to make decisions. Acquiring and analyzing data is hard. It slows down decision-making. Q: How does standardizing processes help with integrating systems and getting to the final goal of being more productive and competitive? A: With standard processes, if I know you are sitting in another plant or in a corporate function, and I know how you’re doing your work and you know how I’m doing mine, decisionmaking and communication are much more efficient. From a technical perspective, standard software design lowers your total cost of ownership. It makes data availability much easier. It really is a critical component of decision-making based on data, not intuition. Q: Would you characterize this as a transformation in your business? A: It has been a transformation. People have had to change how they do work. There are some old habits that have had to be replaced with new ways of working. Sites have had to compromise. Some gave up things they were doing; others adopted some things they weren’t doing. But, at the end of the day, the whole is greater than the parts. By integrating technical solutions, such as ERP with MES and lab solutions, we’ve been able to eliminate a lot of manual data entry that was a duplication of effort. Any time a human is in- 16 December 2007 Photo courtesy: Wyeth Pharmaceuticals http://www.ManagingAutomation.com/execQA
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