LEAN AND SIX SIGMA CONCEPTS - APPLICATION IN PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY

LEAN thinking and Six Sigma have been utilized by manufacturing industries to decrease cost and improve quality and productivity by reducing variation and production defects. Because of the dramatic successes in manufacturing, there is rising interest among companies in the pharmaceutical industry, which choose to implement LEAN in order to accomplish such goals as decreased wait time to release product to the market, reduce production waste, improve communication with end users and raise quality level both in the production and in testing laboratories. In this article, basics of LEAN and Six Sigma are presented and suggestion was given for application of their concepts in pharmaceutical industry together with harmonization with legal regulation represented by requirements Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP), in order to work "smarter", more cost- effectively and avoid wasting time and other resources.