by Ken Snyder

Ipsen is a global specialty-driven biopharmaceutical company committed to providing medical solutions for targeted debilitating diseases. It produces medicines for patients with very specific, life-threatening illnesses. Because running out of medicine can be deadly to patients, a motto of Ipsen is to “never stock out.” Last year, the Ipsen facility in Signes, France, received the Shingo Prize. Ipsen has other facilities in Ireland and the UK as well. Ipsen Biopharm in Wales was awarded the Shingo Bronze Medallion in 2018. Ipsen is deemed essential and has been operating through the COVID-19 pandemic.

When the pandemic started to emerge in Europe, the specialty pharmaceutical group in Signes, France, contacted a sister operation in China to learn best practices on how to keep employees safe and continue operations. The organization implemented many procedures to keep its people safe, but the virus had already spread to some of the employees in the Signes facility. The extent of the spread was unknown because test kits were not available.

To get the situation under control, Ipsen executives decided to shut down the plant for two weeks and have all employees isolate at home while the facility still maintained an adequate supply of medicines to prevent any stock-outs. It worked. When the plant reopened, the procedures in place helped to ensure the safety of the employees, including daily health checks to identify and resolve any spread of the virus. Employees showing symptoms returned to isolation.

With safety stocks rapidly depleting, the facility needed to flex production frequently to prevent any stock outs. The organization did this through daily COVID-19 meetings and rapid problem solving. Ipsen Signes found that its traditional PDCA problem-solving process was too slow, so it switched to OODA-loop (Observe-Orient-Decide-Act) problem solving.

Ipsen reports that its people now feel safe and that a lot of the actions to make people safe, and to prevent any stock outs, are coming from suggestions from team members. As a big contributor to this success, team members praise leader support for implementing suggestions and for providing the necessary resources. Ipsen also credits the Cultural Enablers principles in the Shingo Model—Respect Every Individual and Lead with Humility—as fundamental in guiding them through this difficult situation.