OPS: Transforming production to meet rising demand

Octapharma is constantly seeking to increase production to meet the rapidly growing demand for our products. One way it is achieving this is through the Octapharma Production System (OPS), a global initiative launched at the beginning of 2020 to ensure the company’s production facilities remain at the cutting edge of our industry.

“The goal of OPS is to increase efficiency and contribute to our goal of increasing output from our current production facilities,” says Mads Andersen, Head of Corporate Operational Excellence, who is overseeing the OPS transformation.

“Since launching OPS, many of the value stream areas on our production sites have been transformed to become more efficient and we are constantly seeking new ways to simplify workflows and reduce work so that our people can focus their attention where it matters: on meeting the needs of our patients,” explains Mads. “What we are seeing as we are going through the OPS transformation is that the operational changes are also making a serious difference in the way people work and how much satisfaction they get out of their jobs.”

“The aim of OPS here is clear and straightforward – to organise processes and introduce new ways of working across the site."

Delphine Vivier
Change Agent, Operational Excellence Team

A better structured work environment

The Lingolsheim, France production site was one of the first to implement OPS, at the beginning of 2020. “The aim of OPS here is clear and straightforward – to organise processes and introduce new ways of working across the site,” says Delphine Vivier, Change Agent, Operational Excellence (OE) team.

For example, since its implementation the site has seen significant improvement in equipment monitoring and preventative maintenance, resulting in a 50% drop in corrective maintenance. “We have also improved the work life of our employees by reducing stress levels and encouraging more capability building,” adds Delphine.

Establishing new approaches

“We started OPS in areas where workplace and working routines had been established for decades,” explains Paul Mucha, Operational Excellence Manager and Change Leader for the production site in Vienna. “This workplace is already well organised and efficient, but we want OPS to increase efficiency even further. That means asking people to be open to changing well-established behaviours that often work well to try something new, so it is fortunate that we have a culture that is open to this approach and in which people are willing to try new things as we constantly strive to be even better.”

Within the framework of OPS, the Vienna site standardised its pulse meetings at shift handovers, enhancing the efficiency of the process to allow a seamless transfer between shifts and enable early identification of process deviations.

The Quality Control team at the Vienna site introduced a new database and automated workflow to reduce the administrative load associated with non-routine tests, as part of an OPS initiative to reduce waste and increase efficiency.

Stable production

In Stockholm, Octapharma Sweden (OAB) began its OPS roll out in September 2020, focusing on Quality Control operations, before addressing Basic Fractionation in February 2021.

“With the development of more robust processes, we have increased capacity, improved efficiency and reduced waste, and as a site we are now able to meet the growing demand for our products and thereby support people in need of our medicines,” says Diana Wedenlid, Head of Operational Excellence and Change Leader.

Production stability has improved throughout the OPS journey at the Stockholm site with a notable increase in volumes.

“The different OPS transformations have further improved our processes but also highlighted the importance of collaboration between different departments, making us ‘step out of our silos’ in a very positive way,” says Mattias van Dinther, Change Agent, OE team.

“With the development of more robust processes, we have increased capacity, improved efficiency and reduced waste, and as a site we are now able to meet the growing demand for our products and thereby support people in need of our medicines."

Diana Wedenlid
Head of Operational Excellence and Change Leader

Increasing predictability

OPS was launched in the Basic Fractionation department at the Springe site in mid-2023, and early results show that it has been transformational, increasing production throughput while simplifying work processes and improving communication, information sharing and collaboration.

This process helped identify a handful of critical activities that needed special attention and an optimal production schedule was developed. “As a result, process variability has been drastically reduced making our Fractionation II process more manageable, more robust and predictable,” explains Ruslan Yuryev, Operational Excellence Manager and Change Leader.

“Capacity models for both the Quality Control and Operations departments were introduced for Visual Inspection & Packaging in Vienna,” explains Dilan Adlim, Change Leader for VI&P. “This tool allows us to plan ahead and forecast resources required for upcoming workloads.”

The packaging processes and line changeovers were also standardised. “This made our processes more consistent, reliable and repeatable. Process confirmations are regularly performed to determine if these standards are adhered to and, in the long run, to see if the standards and thus the processes themselves need optimisation,” adds Dilan.

Furthermore, the foundations for data collection, data analysis and reporting of key performance indicators were laid during the first OPS initiative and have since been further developed. This helped the VI&P teams to measure and evaluate current processes and make planning and forecasting more reliable.

“With application and the right mindset, we can deliver fantastic results across the whole company.”

Paul Mucha
Operational Excellence Manager & Change Leader, Vienna

Continuous improvement

Although many OPS initiatives have already been implemented and the rewards are being felt, OPS is a continuous, ongoing improvement process. At Lingosheim, Delphine and the team find that OPS has helped the site to optimise output and quality, while at the same time securing an improved work environment.

In Vienna, Paul agrees, believing that through continued implementation of OPS the entire organisation can expect further efficiency and increased throughput. As he puts it: “With application and the right mindset, we can deliver fantastic results across the whole company.”