Pharmaceutical manufacturing
Reducing shutdown time while increasing manufacturing opportunity
A global pharmaceutical company needed more production opportunity from three facilities already operating near full utilisation. RTL helped reduce shutdown duration and maintenance cost without weakening cGMP assurance or restart control.
Situation
Three critical facilities. Almost no spare capacity.
A global pharmaceutical manufacturer was running a network-wide cost-reduction programme while demand continued to place pressure on three facilities operating at almost 100% utilisation.
The selected sites included an API facility supporting multiple locations and two sterile facilities manufacturing major products. Any additional production opportunity depended on reducing planned shutdown time and using maintenance expenditure more effectively.
Facility 1
API facility
Supported multiple sites within the wider network.
Facility 2
Sterile facility
Manufactured major products under tightly controlled conditions.
Facility 3
Sterile facility
Faced the same utilisation pressure and need for disciplined shutdown performance.
Complication
Reducing the work was not the same as reducing the loss.
The shutdowns could not simply be shortened by removing maintenance activity. The business still needed controlled planning, complete evidence, cGMP compliance and confidence that each facility would restart safely and on schedule.
Poorly justified task removal could exchange visible maintenance cost for far greater production, quality and restart risk.
Create manufacturing capacity
Output opportunity depended on shortening controlled downtime.
Reduce maintenance and calibration cost
The site needed better use of maintenance spend, not blunt cuts.
Protect quality and restart assurance
cGMP evidence, restart confidence and safe execution still had to hold.
Resolution
A controlled method for deciding what changed - and what did not.
RTL worked with global and local multidisciplinary teams to identify the facilities, work content and decision points where optimisation would create genuine value.
Facilitate global and local scoping, select the three high-utilisation facilities, and define value, risk and delivery boundaries.
Introduce clear shutdown and PM-optimisation SOPs, strengthen planning, scheduling and restart controls, and create consistent evidence requirements.
Review maintenance and calibration activity, and extend or refine tasks only where evidence justified it so worklist volume could reduce without weakening assurance.
Provide project and execution leadership, remain on site for 12 months and support application through real shutdown work.
Build confidence and local ownership so client teams could repeat the method independently and expand it beyond the original facilities.
Result
More capacity, lower cost and a method the client retained.
The financial result was only part of the outcome. The site teams subsequently applied the methodology independently in later financial years and expanded it beyond the original facilities.
RTL’s earlier twelve-month project summary also recorded a 36% reduction in OPEX and a 40% increase in manufacturing output across the selected facilities.
This is relevant when...
Visitors should be able to recognise operational fit quickly.
- High-utilisation facilities need more production opportunity
- Shutdown duration is constraining output
- Maintenance cost must reduce without blunt work removal
- Restart risk is difficult to quantify or control
- PM content has grown without consistent evidence
- Global methods are not translating cleanly into local execution
- The organisation needs an approach its own teams can continue
Final CTA
Where is capacity being lost in your operation?
RTL can help define the constraint, test the available opportunity and establish a controlled route from analysis through to execution.