Almac reports progress in Clinical Technologies Lean Six Sigma Efforts

The Almac Group announced today that its Clinical Technologies Business Unit has made significant progress in advancing its Six Sigma-led quality and productivity initiatives. The program began with the goals of increasing quality and productivity by addressing key issues relating to people, processes and technology. Directed by a certified Six Sigma Black Belt, Almac’s program has trained sixteen Green Belts and three Black Belts, and has now advanced to full-scale deployment across the unit.

Almac launched its Six Sigma program in 2011 with the training of its entire Clinical Technologies’ leadership team and selected staff from each functional discipline in Lean Six Sigma methodologies.  This training helped prepare the organization to effectively leverage the team of twenty Six Sigma experts who are currently leading strategically-selected business improvement projects. By adhering to a disciplined, fact-based process excellence methodology, Almac expects its Six Sigma program to deliver increased value to clients, employees and sites, all of whom will benefit from the technology and process improvements currently underway.

Jim Murphy, President of Almac’s Clinical Technologies’ Business Unit comments: “Since our founding, Clinical Technologies has nurtured a learning culture that is focused on customer satisfaction, innovation and continuous improvement. A significant part of our corporate culture involves using metrics and data to make business decisions; this dovetails perfectly with the Six Sigma methodology, a systematic information-driven methodology for improving business performance by reducing, if not eliminating, product and process deficiencies and variation. With Six Sigma in our continuous improvement toolkit, Almac will drive efficiencies that we can pass on to our clients, all of whom are striving to increase the productivity of their R&D efforts.”

Almac selected the Juran Institute, an internationally recognized leader in the field of quality management, as its Lean Six Sigma training and deployment partner. Juran’s Lean Six Sigma program was especially attractive to Almac because it can be implemented flexibly and quickly to achieve performance breakthroughs and sustainable business results. Todd Kole, Almac’s Vice President of Clinical Project Services department comments on Almac’s selection of Juran: “Almac selected Juran as a partner in its Six Sigma training because of its reputation as one of the world’s leaders in both Six Sigma and Lean methodologies. More importantly, Juran took the time to understand Almac’s business, clients and industry and put together a tailored program that would help Almac achieve its strategic and operational goals.”

Notes to Editors

About Almac

Almac’s Clinical Technologies Business Unit specializes in interactive technology and service solutions to increase the quality and efficiency of clinical trials. Solutions include Interactive Voice and Web Response Systems (IXRS^®) for patient randomization and drug assignment, patient and clinical supplies management, electronic-patient-reported-outcomes data collection, patient compliance and Web drug reconciliation. Almac’s technologies have been deployed in over 1800 clinical trials, incorporating over 1.7 million patients in over 80 countries and more than 50 languages.

The Almac Group provides a broad range of services from R&D, biomarker discovery and development, API manufacture, formulation development, clinical trial supply and IXRS^® technology (IVRS/IWRS), to commercial-scale manufacture. Almac provides services to more than 600 companies, including all the world leaders in the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors. The company employs over 3,300 individuals and is headquartered in Craigavon, Northern Ireland. US operations are based in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and California.

For more information about the Almac Group, please visit almacgroup.com or e-mail [email protected]

About Juran Institute

In 1979, Dr. Joseph M. Juran founded Juran Institute, Inc., an organization aimed at providing research and pragmatic solutions to enable organizations from any industry to learn the tools and techniques for managing quality and performance excellence. Building upon Dr. Juran’s foundation, they now provide a number of services to help clients in all industries. Juran is known worldwide for research, consulting, and training that enables organizations to increase product and service quality, streamline business processes, reduce costs, and heighten their competitive edge.

Juran’s mission is to create value for society and customers through superior quality and sustainable results. Their vision is to be recognized by customers as the best source for achieving that value.