## Working Smarter 

The goal of continuous improvement is doing our jobs smarter, faster and better. And whether it is creating organizational changes or finding new ways to become more efficient, the ultimate aim of a culture of continuous improvement is to ensure effective and efficient opera- tions, ones that also help enhance greater collaboration across the entire company. 

A significant action in 2012 to drive greater efficiency and effectiveness was the creation of the Enterprise Services organization. “Its mission,” says Paul von Autenried, senior vice president, Enterprise Services, and chief information officer, “is to make it easier to get work done by delivering global end-to-end services on which we all depend to per - form our jobs.” Through the consolidation of teams within information technology, finance, human resources, pur- chasing, marketing and contracting, Enterprise Services is building new capabilities and making improvements to existing capabilities that enable and accelerate the operation of the company. For example, in collaboration with Global Manufacturing and Supply, Enterprise Services completed a three-year project to provide a single global system that standardizes and controls financial, manufac- turing, supply chain and order processing records across Bristol-Myers Squibb. 

Global Manufacturing and Supply launched two important initiatives in 2012 that focus on continuous improvement. The Plant Network Strategy aims at optimizing our entire manufacturing network by increasing the utilization of our 

facilities and focusing the plants on what they each do best. And as part of the Operational Excellence Transfor - mation initiative, sites across our network are embedding analytical tools and business processes that optimize operations and build continuous improvement into the way they work. “Our teams are really embracing the continuous improvement culture,” says Roberta McKee, senior vice president, Global Manufacturing Science and Technol - ogy. “For example, our active product ingredient plants in Ireland as well as our biologics plant in Devens have identified ways to significantly reduce cycle times, which increases capacity to support our growing pipeline.” 

Efforts to improve processes also have been wide-ranging and ongoing across every aspect of R&D. Every part of the R&D organization has an important role to play. For exam - ple, Research and Pharmaceutical Development scientists are seeking to replace liquid blood samples, which are dif - ficult to store and costly to ship, with dry samples. “It’s such a great concept,” says Paul Biondi, senior vice president, R&D Operations. “It doesn’t only reduce costs, but it also allows our people to stay focused on research rather than materials handling.” What’s more, changing how clinical samples are collected, analyzed and stored is expected to save the company more than $70 million a year. Additional improvements under study range from an initiative to obtain greater efficiencies in clinical site selection that could enhance clinical trial startups, patient recruitment and reten- tion, to automating certain cell culture feeding processes that could enhance multiple drug discovery efforts. r 

Devens 

