LEAN AND SIX SIGMA CONCEPTS - APPLICATION IN PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY

Katarina Pavlovic, Vojislav Bozanic

Abstract: LEAN thinking and Six Sigma have been utilized by manufacturing industries to decrease cost and impr ove quality and productivity by reducing variation and production defects. Because of the dramatic successes in manufacturing, there is rising in terest among companies in the pharmaceutical industry, which choose to implement LEAN in order to accomplish such goals as decreased wait time to release product to the market, reduce production waste, impr ove communication with end users and raize quality level both in the produc tion and in testing laboratories. In this article, basics of LEAN and Six Sigma are presented and suggestion was given for application of their concepts in pharmaceutical industry together with harmonization with legal regulati on represented by requirements Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP), in orde r to work "smarter", more cost- effectively and avoid wasting time and other resources.

Keywords: lean, six isgma, phar maceutical industry

DOI:

Recieved: 17.01.2011  Accepted: 15.05.2011  UDC: 658.5

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