How Toyota’s approach to making cars can aid vaccine production in Africa 

How a focus on less could mean more for African healthcare 

Now new research is looking into whether Lean principles can be reconciled with GMP standards for pharmaceuticals, particularly in the production of the potentially billions of doses of COVID-19 vaccines.  Fussing over production waste at a time of constrained supply may seem a pointless – even paradoxical – exercise, but ‘lean’ manufacturing principles may actually help African manufacturers raise their game at this critical time.

A recent study on a pharmaceutical company in Sudan for example, looked at which aspects of lean thinking could offer resource-constrained manufacturers in the developing world the means to improve its production processes. In this way, they could exploit burgeoning opportunities in ‘glocalisation’, that is, global cooperation between multinational companies (MNCs) and local producers and distributors. (Even though these arrangements have been rare and troubled in the current COVID context.)

The Sudanese company is of interest largely because despite its own, as well as sector- and country-wide constraints, it had prior to the COVID pandemic secured an ISO 9001 certification, an internationally recognised standard for Quality Management Systems. They managed to do so because they had, for some time, prioritised quality assurance founded on principles of lean thinking.

This means that throughout their production, they have adhered to the five principles of Lean: committing to value; working within teams to eliminate waste in the value stream of production; establishing a smooth flow in that production stream by empowering those in the teams; strengthening communication within teams through ‘pull scheduling’, such as involving team members in the scheduling of production times in response to customers ‘pulling’ products off the line (as compared to just producing en masse with little regard for demand); and pursuing quality and perfection by evaluating the production process as a whole.

Securing the supply chain  

Of utmost importance are two particular factors in the Lean approach, and in this company’s processes. One, it had, very simply, committed itself to quality assurance. And two, it had built a culture of quality through an inclusive and participative change process in which it ensured that team members, who understand the processes better than managers and CEOs, had provided input into the production exercise.

The ISO 9001 certification was an immediate return for both the company and Sudan’s domestic pharma industry. Now, in the face of a global health crisis in which pharmaceutical supply is under threat, this achievement alone takes on greater relevance. As foreign direct investment is increasingly harder to come by, state coffers are depleted and import capacity is stifled, manufacturers in emerging countries will find that a Lean makeover of their internal processes can allow them to both increase capacity and ensure quality.  

The pandemic has highlighted the need for a secure pharmaceutical supply chain. Lean processes can help secure that supply chain, and the supply of vital medicines where needed.