Participant of the national project "Labor Productivity" - pharmaceutical plant "Biochemist" (Promomed Group) increased production and reduced production costs

Biochemist summed up the results of the second stage of participation in the national project "Labor Productivity improvement and employment support". The goal of the national project is to ensure a five percent annual increase in labor productivity at medium-sized and large enterprises in non-resource sectors of the economy by 2024.

In Mordovia, 44 enterprises of the region became participants in the national project "Labor Productivity and employment support". According to the acting Head of the republic, Artyom Zdunov, increased labor productivity and increased process efficiency are important for both business and the state – these are additional budget revenues and GDP growth.
JSC Biochemist was one of the first enterprises of the Republic of Mordovia to participate in the implementation of the priority national project "Increasing labor productivity and employment support". The launch pad was a workshop for the production of ready-made medicines in ampoules.

The main tasks - efficient use of resources, cost reduction, reduction of process time, and improvement of working conditions – were solved using lean manufacturing techniques and tools. A major reconstruction of the site was carried out. As a result, it was possible to group production facilities in one space, which were previously located on four floors of the building. This shortened the length of the flow and eliminated the movement of the intermediate product on elevators inside the production process. The redevelopment of the cleanroom area has minimized redundant operations, saved electricity and steam, reduced equipment power requirements, and increased the reliability of cleanroom protection from pollution. It also increased the concentration of employees' attention on the execution of key operations, as a result - reducing shutdowns, reducing the number of defects, speeding up equipment restarts and switching between products.
As a result of the implementation of the first stage of the national project, the company managed to double the production of finished medicines in ampoules to 15 million units per month.
At the next stage, Biochemist set itself the task of systematizing the results obtained and replicating them into production. The experience gained allowed us to look at the processes within the company in a new way and identified opportunities to increase productivity for other key areas of the company.
In particular, it was possible to optimize the production process of injectable antibiotics. By reducing the time of chemical sterilization of format parts and reducing the time required to prepare equipment for packaging, the site's productivity increased by 500,000 vials per month.
The process of filling out the "Batch Dossier" has been automated at all sites of the enterprise, which frees up the working time of shift supervisors and reduces the risks of incorrect information being entered into the protocols.
A hardware and software package for labeling and product aggregation has been implemented, developed within the framework of Promomed Group of Companies. As a result, it was possible to optimize a number of production and business processes, to eliminate errors in labeling and aggregation.
"In addition to increasing efficiency on production lines, the corporate culture has also changed. Employees are involved in the process of continuous improvement, they feel their responsibility and importance in the development of the company.
The success of all the work depends on how much the managers and staff of the enterprise believe in the effectiveness of lean production methods," said Dmitry Zemskov, Executive Director of Biochemik JSC.
Biochemist continues to participate in the national project "Increasing labor Productivity and employment support." The best practices and experience gained in the early stages are scaled to the entire enterprise and will be applied in newly opened and reconstructed workshops.