Pharma struggles with changeovers

Changeovers and frequent stops during manufacturing runs trip up pharmaceutical manufacturing operations much more than they do operations in other industries. On average, changeovers consume 14 percent of capacity for drugmakers--nearly five times the lowly 3 percent across all industries.

The stats come from a benchmarking study recently completed by manufacturing intelligence solutions provider Informance. The study analyzed manufacturing operations from January to June 2009 in the pharmaceutical, consumer packaged goods, food and beverage, and industrial industries. The firm says that researchers studied some 17,000 production weeks across more than 700 global manufacturing operations. The researchers use manufacturing performance data collected via the company's Enterprise Manufacturing Intelligence platform.

Additional findings show that top performers currently operate at 78 percent overall equipment effectiveness, while best-of-the-best performers reach 93 percent.

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