Going for perfection at every turn

At all our plants, the pandemic has posed several challenges, demanding out-of-the-box thinking, hard work and a focus on excellence to overcome. The teams at one of our packaging units come to mind when we think of focusing on excellence, no matter the odds. They had numerous challenges, but they rose to the occasion every single time.

A few months ago, they realised that their existing blister packing machine couldn’t handle rising volumes, so a decision was made to buy a new machine. A similar ten-year-old machine was lying around in another site, worn out and rusted. The obvious choice may have seemed to be the new machine, but the unit decided to try its hand at fixing the old one, updating it to current standards and bumping up production.

It was a fun project, challenging on one hand and a dream come true for trained mechanics, engineers, operators and other technical staff. After all, how many chances do you get in professional life to tinker with a discarded machine and bring it back to life? A team of machine operators, packing supervisors, engineering representatives, QA members, packaging development members, etc., was formed to identify problem areas and resolve them. This included changing faulty parts, sourcing new parts for missing ones, addressing prerequisites, documentation, liaising with the vendor and procurement. In the end, however, the team was successful in getting the machine going again.

In another example, the unit’s packaging development team made great strides in the creation of new packs for a cough and cold medication. They were determined to develop packs that are machine-friendly, without compromising on market requirements. They worked with vendors and the production team to develop a layout where they could fit the maximum number of tablets in a blister without changing the blister size, and the final layouts can accommodate double the number of tablets. The redesign was a masterstroke and a prime example of how our teams focus all their efforts on excellence.

We don’t believe in mediocrity or settling for less. It’s how we’re grown into a global company with a presence in 42 countries.

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