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Built to Last
September 5, 2024
The Foundations Supporting Successful CMOs
Value. Values. Results.
Worn down from wearing too many hats; weighted with worries about the implications of geo-political instabilities; or followed home after-hours by emails coming direct to your phone… Contract Manufacturers globally are reporting that the pressures/demands on their time have never been higher.
In this article, we examine the foundational processes and partnerships which are available to provide valuable dependability for CMOs – to help eliminate uncertainties, mitigate risks, and control what is possible to control.
We ask…
Is your supply chain adding VALUE Do your partners share your VALUES, and therefore… Are your relationships driving RESULTS
Foundational Processes
There’s a high chance that you are already either using or working towards standards such as ISO, GMP and Lean Production, which fundamentally support CMOs’ business success and longevity.
Compliance with these standards means clear quality and safety directives about manufacturing clean-down and set-up procedures, as well as controlled record-keeping of recipes per product and per mixing vessel/ filling machine. They also provide guidance as to best practice around process and procedural documentation, corrective/preventive action, and more.
In line with Lean Production considerations, CMOs offer, understand and expect value for money. ‘Value’ from your supply chain goes beyond the cost of their product. Evaluating your suppliers to ensure their foundational processes align with your own, both takes this aspect of pressure off of your own audits, and adds weight to your service offering in the eyes of customers. For example, ensuring that your packaging supplier adheres to ISO 9001:2015, or your filling machine supplier manufacturers their equipment to GMP standards.
This simple check enables your suppliers to add other aspects of value later down the line; from reducing the likelihood of administrative headaches from non-conformances, to contributing to a positive impression for your customers and winning new contracts, and more.
Ways in which your supply chain can add value, from PHP’s Strategic Buyer Glen Smith:
- Accepting orders for the year, holding your stock to ensure guaranteed quick fulfilment
- Discussing your idea and adapting our standard equipment, to innovate based upon your production requirements
- Helping with environmental practices that we’ve found pivotal in achieving sustainable targets
- Working together on optimised delivery lead times and terms
Recommended by the European Co-Packers Association:
ISO & GMP Compliant Mixing Vessels from Pharma Hygiene Products >>>
ISO & GMP Compliant Filling Machinery from Adelphi Manufacturing >>>
Strategic Partnerships
Loyalty is a rare commodity in the digital age, where moving between suppliers can feel as simple as flicking a switch. Scarily, contract manufacturing partners themselves can even be seen as dispensable and interchangeable!
However, as well as aligning with your suppliers’ procedural standards (above), working with suppliers and customers whose Values correspond with your own is another huge business advantage. This leads to greater longevity of relationships, and therefore greater business stability for CMOs.
Defining the company values which underpin your service offering, and which you expect from your strategic suppliers, can help you avoid getting into price wars with other CMOs – the quality of your values represents an additional layer of investment value for your customers.
Mutual Understanding Transparent Communication Delivering on Promises
A Consultative Approach Charity & Community No Hard-Selling Sustainability
Relationship Building Support Partnerships Commitment
View your core suppliers – particularly the Quality Critical Vendors on your approved suppliers list – as resources to share best practices and enhance your own credentials.
Read the article, ‘Environmentally Preferable Purchasing’, Top Tips >>>
Ways in which your supply chain can demonstrate support for your business values,
from PHP’s Strategic Buyer Glen Smith:
You Value Quality
- Your supplier commits to using only the best – certified – materials available in the market
- Your supplier meets internationally standardised procedural guidelines, EG: ISO 9001
- Your supplier has a strong Code of Conduct, ensuring their own team and downstream network will both meet your high expectations
- Your supplier engages in supply chain mapping, to identify risks, assess potential impact, and resolve issues in a timely and professional manner
You Value Sustainability
- Your supplier has been externally recognised for their sustainability efforts and impact, EG: through Certification or Awards
You Value Corporate Social Responsibility
- Your supplier has a commitment to investing in local businesses
- Your supplier demonstrates a culture of charitable and community based outreach
Community & Network
As well as maximising the strength/ value of your foundational processes and supplier partnerships, consider the other major assets within your network; your people.
Your colleagues are the enactors of your processes, giving you the on-the-ground intelligence to take to your suppliers, who can then recommend solutions. As a strategic partner to CMOs globally, Adelphi are often invited to consult with filling supervisors, production operatives, etc, to overcome challenges when mixing or filling certain troublesome products, or to improve the efficiency of a piece of equipment or process.
Read the case study: 25% productivity improvement at CMO Mayfield Laboratories >>>
Longevity of relationships, both internal and external, means that the context and needs of your business are understood by as many relevant contributors as possible. In the event that a colleague retires or moves on, your accumulated operational knowledge isn’t lost, as it isn’t only kept in one person’s head!
It can sometimes be challenging for CMOs to justify the expense of out-of-office time attending networking events. However, ROI is generated by the value of conversations. Inviting key customers and suppliers to meet with you at these events is an ideal way to guarantee ROI before you even arrive!
Where will YOU network?
Value. Values. Results.
Your Key Concerns Answered! Speed, ROI, Quality, Communication
1. Speed
Flexibility and responsiveness in contract manufacturing is essential, to ensure your business can adapt to market changes, meet varying customer demands, and optimize production efficiency. Long wait times can halt operations and strain stakeholder relationships.
At Adelphi, we support you from the start. By completing a simple yet thorough questionnaire before our initial project meeting, we can tailor a proposal to meet your specific requirements, maximizing time efficiency and minimising the need for repeat-meetings.
By saving your mixing vessel designs as part of our Quality Management System, we significantly reduce quotation-to-order time for CMOs who need to repeat order the same vessel specifications for multiple jobs. We can also easily scale up vessel designs to enable larger batch fulfilment as needed, allowing you to adapt flexibly to changes in your manufacturing processes.
2. ROI
Evaluating both the potential returns and the associated costs of a project are essential before deciding whether to take it on. This involves estimating revenue, calculating direct and indirect costs, evaluating the time frame, assessing risks, and finally – calculating ROI.
A key indirect cost is capital expenditure, or the investment needed in new equipment to enable the job to be completed. Accurate quotations from your suppliers are therefore essential for the accuracy of your ROI calculations, and informing your strategic business decisions.
At Adelphi, our aim is to help you secure budget approval from future stakeholders, and our quotations never include hidden costs. We have also made the decision to utilise high grade stainless steel for the construction of our mixing vessels and filling machinery, since the durability of this equipment in the long-term provides the best ROI. Stainless steel is extremely hygienic, as well as being easy to sterilise and re-use. Purchasing plastic-constructed vessels can be cheaper in the short-term, but this can often prove to be false economy later down the line.
- Quality
Quality of service, quality of materials, quality of construction, quality of support…
Where quality is concerned, PHP are hard to beat. Our ISO 9001:2015 certification independently verifies that our processes and procedures are of the highest standards. Our quality measures include timed quick responses to your enquiries, a commitment to ‘right first time’ quotations, certification of our materials, longevity of the equipment’s service life, positive customer feedback, and more…
Our engineering team have a combined 40 years of industry experience, and work just one flight of stairs up from our on-site welding and machining departments. This ensures complete project oversight and clear communication between departments, guaranteeing that process vessels meet your precise specifications.
All 316L stainless steel supplied to us is tested in house using an X-ray analyser. This confirms the highly hygienic material grade; an essential when manufacturing highly regulated products such as pharmaceuticals, skincare. We can also provide Surface Finish and TSE certification, should your QA processes require.
- Communication
At PHP we like to be proactive from the get-go. Our short yet thorough project introduction questionnaire cuts down on your lead times by ensuring we’re the right fit for you. Instead of describing the rough shape of what you need, only to discover later that it’s unfeasible, we work through your project requirements together, to ascertain: Can we build it, and a ballpark figure. Once this is out the way, we can organise a conference call to discuss your solution in more detail. Understanding your deadlines are extremely important to us, and this open communication will allow us to hone down a realistic time frame that works for you.
We are forthcoming on any expected delays and never leave you feeling in the dark. Good communication is rooted in expressing both the good and the bad. However, there’s usually not a lot of bad news to report, as we’ve ironed out the specifics via the questionnaire.
“We are thoroughly impressed with Pharma Hygiene Products’ speed, flexibility, and their communicative and supportive approach in helping us find the right tools for the job.” Ardena
Conclusion
Let’s be honest. With all the hats worn by CMOs – Management administration, Production planning, Customer-facing, etc – we know no-one wants to think too much about equipment supply, they just want to get on with the more fun aspects of the job!
However, investigating the above concerns now, can reduce production pain points in the future. Creating a supplier partnership relationship based upon mutual values and transparent expectations, enables you to reduce this element of risk to your business.
The world outside your facility is unpredictable. Changes in geopolitics affect the availability and prices of certain ingredients, making something that was easy to manufacture one day impossible the next. In an unstable world, your equipment should be a constant.
At PHP we don’t hard-sell our products; the benefits are clear. We highly value the CMO partnership relationships we build over time, with many of our customers additionally working with our sister company, Adelphi Manufacturing…
“Flexibility in contract manufacturing is essential, to ensure your business can adapt to market changes, meet varying customer demands, and optimize production efficiency. Adelphi Manufacturing created the scalable Response range of filling machinery to give Contract Manufacturers a competitive edge…”
Pharma Hygiene Products (PHP) and Adelphi Manufacturing are both Associate Members of the European Contract Packing Association (ECPA).
info@adelphi.uk.com +44(0)1444 472300