CASE STUDY

Maverick Biosciences produces and exports animal derived biological materials from Australia and New Zealand globally; creating and managing customised supply chains for manufacturers of pharmaceuticals, vaccines, medical products, nutraceuticals and collagen-based products.

The Challenge

Maverick is a supplier of animal-derived biological products to the global human health industry. Maverick Bioscience operates under an ISO 9001 certified management system which focuses on production quality. Maverick wanted to expand quality thinking to every process in the organisation, including support processes, so the organisation could continue to grow in a sustainable way

The Solution

Transfirm worked with Maverick to formulate a process framework that describes how the business functions. The process framework enabled staff to see the business as a set of interconnected processes that they could continually improve.  As processes improved, staff ‘locked-in’ the improvements by updating the online Integrated Management System (IMS) that Transfirm developed. The IMS has become a tool for viewing how people and technology work together – it plays a key role in supporting the culture of team-based quality manufacturing.

Critical Success Factors

Transfirm and Maverick worked collaboratively to lead the change in a way that people could see the journey as one of strengthening Maverick’s Culture of Quality Manufacturing.

Applying the change as a consistent program over time was critical to the project’s success. This created certainty for staff who responded with dedication and hard work.

The most important factor was having the full support, and direct involvement of the Maverick Board, who took a long-term view of the value of quality, set standards, and encouraged people on the journey.

The Goals

The specific goals of the project were to:

• Continually improve DIFOT (delivery of products globally in-full and on-time). Maverick wanted to sustain very high levels of DIFOT despite operating in an industry that inherently has high levels of variation in animal tissue.
• Move the culture from one of producing quality products, to one which takes a quality approach to all aspects of the organisation, including support processes.
• Setup a scalable online Integrated Management System (IMS) to provide the infrastructure required to grow the business to 2026 and beyond.

The Process

The process was to apply the principles of business excellence in a quality manufacturing context and capture the new processes in an online management system. This was supported by the introduction of key tools such as an online Integrated Management System, ‘One-Page Planning’, ‘Visual Management’, ‘Level Production’, ‘Process Mapping’, ‘Team-based problem solving’.

The Results

At a cultural level, there has been an observable shift towards collaborative problem solving between functions. These collaborative teams are noticeably engaged in the action of ‘wedging’ improvements made to all business processes into the IMS, thereby sustaining improvements in performance. Leadership has moved to one of developing others through a total quality approach to work.

At an operating level, there have been improvements to efficiency. Variations in production output have significantly reduced, resulting in more consistent output and cash-flows.

At a customer level, the service experience has become more customized with better visibility of a highly reliable tissue supply.