Operational excellence (OPEX) is all about ensuring flexibility in the most efficient way of harmonizing people, processes and products through standardization, continuous improvements through Kaizen, and creating a culture of teamwork, creativity, and innovation said T R Parasuraman, Executive Advisor – Toyota Group, Toyota Kirloskar Motor Pvt Ltd

In a Keynote address during the conclave on Operational Excellence in Pharma Industry: Global MNCs - Indian Stories organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Visakhapatnam here on Monday, T R Parasuraman said the road to success is under construction and the sky is not the limit when it comes to operational excellence and continuous benchmarking to level up together with accelerated horizontal deployment is key. Operational excellence must start from the top and nurture continuously through the good environment, systems, and people development.

He further explained, It’s all about going back to basics, all employees should follow the basic rules and systems without fail. The shop floor is our heart and it is a powerful tool for prosperity. Spending considerable time on the factory floor will help in understanding the problem accordingly we can guide and direct the team in resolving the same.

Sharing his views on the significance of human resource development, he urged industry members in developing people for the future. Prepare them to become the future leaders of the business.

Chairman of the CII Visakhapatnam Dr. PP Lal Krishna in his welcome address said OPEX plays a crucial role in the industries and underscored the need for adopting best practices, embracing technology, and fostering a culture of excellence so that companies can enhance their competitive advantage, deliver innovative products, and positively impact outcomes.

Explaining the objective of the conclave, the Past Chairman of CII Visakhapatnam & Managing Director, of Ajinomoto Bio-Pharma Services KVV Raju said it’s a platform where we brought together the eminent people from the Global MNCs in the Pharma Industry to share their valuable insights on best practices, challenges and how to improve operational agility, reduce costs, eradicating human errors and enhance workforce effectiveness, optimization of strategy and their journey towards OPEX in the Indian context.

During the panel discussion on OPEX of Global MNCs in the Indian Context, Ananat Barbadikar, Managing Director, PharmaZell (I) Pvt Ltd said OPEX deals with multiple measurement tools like Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and lean Six Sigma which eliminates waste, makes more productive thereby leads to profitability and customer satisfaction. 

While Mr Vijaya Waman Ghogare, Cluster Head- API Operations, Biocon Ltd exhorted that to achieve long-term operational resiliency, the need is to implement the right digital tools in the pharma industry to achieve cross-functional collaboration for their sites and supply chains to drive efficiencies and enhance revenue.

Other speakers shared how to optimize the strategies and capabilities in OPEX and highlighted the challenges faced by the pharma companies on how to be faster, cheaper, more compliant and more sustainable, and stressed the need to automate elements of the manufacturing process to enhance speed and efficiency and to eliminate human error.