Preventing Heart Failure

Situation

New findings in the treatment and prevention of heart disease had created a significant upturn in the demand for this otherwise mature drug. The discussions in the boardroom of this pharmaceutical company focused on how to take advantage of this opportunity.

The obvious solution of procuring and installing capital to create the additional capacity was causing heartburn. The board was worried that by the time the new assets were online, the competition would already have swallowed the market. They turned to Stroud for insight on alternative solutions to this critical business situation.

Complications

To further complicate the board's decision, a recent review from manufacturing operations clearly stated that there was no spare capacity within the existing assets.

"Our assets are old and we already struggle to meet existing demand let alone increase by 20%"
SVP Operations

Results

Within a few weeks, the client team, led by a Stroud consultant, were able to make dramatic improvements in the process. These improvements "opened" 16 weeks of capacity and the plant was able to increase production by 30% and easily meet market demand. This was the start of an ongoing relationship that led to a thorough review of existing practices and the implementation of an improvement framework that routinely generated these types of results.