Written By: Jorge Sugranes, Technical Operations Director LATAM, PSC Biotech®
We are in a global era in which creative thinking, technological innovation, and doing things differently are necessary to compete in the international market. High quality, rapid production, and efficiency are important, but no longer the secret weapons that bring competitive advantage to our manufacturing sector. Our competitors are doing exactly the same. Innovation, reengineering, and continuous improvement are at the forefront of bringing a sustainable competitive differentiation to our business.

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History has demonstrated significant evolution and transformation in the manufacturing sector, especially in the medical devices and pharmaceutical industry. These highly technological companies are under continuous threat and pressure from a competitive global market, strong regulations, and incremental financial performance expectations. Business differentiation and sustainability are the biggest challenges.

Before embracing any innovation, reengineering, or continuous improvement initiative, we must clearly understand these concepts, their implications, and their differences. Operational innovation should not be confused with operational improvement or operational excellence. Those terms refer to achieving high performance via existing modes of operation without fundamentally changing how that work is accomplished. Operational innovation means coming up with entirely new ways of doing any activity that an enterprise performs.

We can agree that process improvement is great, excellence in operations is better, but innovation is best. I strongly believe that innovation with quality in mind is the way to go to bring business differentiation and strength competitive position. I encourage you to exercise creative thinking, continue looking for innovative ideas and quality improvements.