Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) is the world's leading producer of healthcare, pharmaceutical and medical devices with annual revenues for their latest fiscal year of $61.5B and Net Income of $13.3B, operating in 57 nations and selling into over 175 countries (Johnson & Johnson Investor Relations, 2012). While the company operates across a very broad value chain, it has successfully integrated many of the core supplier management, procurement, strategic capacity planning and constraint-based planning into a centralized strategy (Atherton, Kleiner, 1998). Integrating these elements together has given Johnson & Johnson greater agility and accuracy in managing aberrations in quality and supplier performance, stabilizing both end-product quality and manufacturing performance at the same time (Slobodow, Abdullah, Babuschak, 2008). From the most basic aspects of job design to the development of its strategic sourcing and strategic capacity planning, Johnson & Johnson concentrates on creating a platform to ensure their Total Quality Management (TQM) and House of Quality ongoing efforts stay synchronized corporate-wide (Johnson, 1993). This makes constraint-based planning and manufacturing execution systems (MES) more effective, while also minimizing the level of demand and process/product variability, leading to accelerated new product development cycles and more profitable medical products (Atherton, Kleiner, 1998). What Johnson & Johnson has been able to do is unify their entire value chain to deal with these aspects of constraint-based planning. As the company is very metrics- and quantitatively-driven, production managers and company executives know the relative level of success or failure for each of these areas relatively quickly based on the use of real-time analytics and dashboards that include Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) (Atherton, Kleiner, 1998). This mindset around measuring and quantifying performance is predicated on the company's approach to delivering business value by ensuring the entire value chain is transparent from a strategic capacity planning and risk management perspective (Williams, 2004). Johnson & Johnson has learned over decades of work on their constraint-based planning systems that creating a high level of supply chain, sourcing, route assurance, non-conformance and traceability visibility throughout their value chain can save millions of dollar a year and thousands of cumulative hours (Atherton, Kleiner, 1998). The next section discusses how the company uses capacity and constraint-based planning to better manager their value chain.
Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) is the world's leading producer of healthcare, pharmaceutical and medical devices with annual revenues for their latest fiscal year of $61.5B and Net Income of $13.3B, operating in 57 nations and selling into over 175 countries (Johnson & Johnson Investor Relations, 2012). While the company operates across a very broad value chain, it has successfully integrated many of the core supplier management, procurement, strategic capacity planning and constraint-based planning into a centralized strategy (Atherton, Kleiner, 1998). Integrating these elements together has given Johnson & Johnson greater agility and accuracy in managing aberrations in quality and supplier performance, stabilizing both end-product quality and manufacturing performance at the same time (Slobodow, Abdullah, Babuschak, 2008). From the most basic aspects of job design to the development of its strategic sourcing and strategic capacity planning, Johnson & Johnson concentrates on creating a platform to ensure their Total Quality Management (TQM) and House of Quality ongoing efforts stay synchronized corporate-wide (Johnson, 1993). This makes constraint-based planning and manufacturing execution systems (MES) more effective, while also minimizing the level of demand and process/product variability, leading to accelerated new product development cycles and more profitable medical products (Atherton, Kleiner, 1998). What Johnson & Johnson has been able to do is unify their entire value chain to deal with these aspects of constraint-based planning. As the company is very metrics- and quantitatively-driven, production managers and company executives know the relative level of success or failure for each of these areas relatively quickly based on the use of real-time analytics and dashboards that include Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) (Atherton, Kleiner, 1998). This mindset around measuring and quantifying performance is predicated on the company's approach to delivering business value by ensuring the entire value chain is transparent from a strategic capacity planning and risk management perspective (Williams, 2004). Johnson & Johnson has learned over decades of work on their constraint-based planning systems that creating a high level of supply chain, sourcing, route assurance, non-conformance and traceability visibility throughout their value chain can save millions of dollar a year and thousands of cumulative hours (Atherton, Kleiner, 1998). The next section discusses how the company uses capacity and constraint-based planning to better manager their value chain.
How Capacity and Constraint-Based Planning Impact the Value Chain
For the company to be successful and alleviate the high costs of non-compliance in the industries they compete in, which are the most regulated in the U.S. And globally, the design of their value chain is tightly linked to their use of enterprise systems. The Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems act as the foundation of their Collaborative Planning Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR) process which is the foundation of their visibility-based approach to constraint-based planning based on market demand. Controlling for demand variability at the Bill of Materials (BOM) level gives Johnson & Johnson manufacturing greater control over the individualized quality levels in each product run, and in the case of medical products, every device produced. The company has also had to contend with wide variations in quality of components, aberrations in supplier performance and the need for ensuring Six Sigma quality management initiatives were in place to minimize variability of each production run. In short, the entire value chain fo Johnson & Johnson is continually moving and changing based on quality variations and aberrations in supplier performance and quality as well. Instead of a stable, consistently predictable strategic capacity planning process and the apparent linear process shown in Figure 1, Analysis of the Johnson & Johnson Value Chain, in reality the entire chain is much more chaotic, unpredictable with constraint modeling controlling demand variability and produces/product variability as well. If Figure 1 is literally put into motion and the many moving parts are given their own level or tolerance of performance, the entire manufacturing process becomes not as predictable yet highly dependent on Six Sigma and Enterprise Quality Management concepts to keep synchronized, coordinated and accomplishing critical production goals.
Figure 1: Analysis of the Johnson & Johnson Value Chain
Sources: (Atherton, Kleiner, 1998) (Johnson & Johnson Investor Relations, 2012)
Variability in capacity planning and constraint-based modeling of demand has also led Johnson & Johnson to adopt and standardize on Lean Six Sigma as part of its quality management and constraint-based planning strategies (Hunter, Schmitt, 1999). Based on an analysis of their annual reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange (SEC) Commission and (Johnson & Johnson Investor Relations, 2012) the following analysis of the lean manufacturing, Six Sigma and Design for Six Sigma initiatives in the company are profiled. Taken together these form the Johnson & Johnson Enterprise Compliance and Quality Management (ECQM) framework the company relies on for ensuring speed, accuracy, consistency and customer-focused innovation throughout its value chain processes. Figure 2 provides an analysis of how Johnson & Johnson has organized these initiatives as a three-phased approach to continual improvement.
Figure 2: Johnson & Johnson Framework for Continuous Improvement
Source: (Johnson & Johnson Investor Relations, 2012)
It's critical in the Johnson & Johnson organizational structure to continually strive for greater visibility, transparency and control over the inherently uncontrollable aspects of such a diverse and globally distributed supply chain. The company incorporates these factors to create a systematic approach to delivering greater revenue growth, cost reduction and asset utilization through more efficient quality management and compliance programs. Figure 3 defines how business improvements in the company translate over time into the foundations of greater revenue growth, cost reduction and asset utilization. It also provides a reference back to the compliance platform contributions to greater production efficiency as well. This illustrates how strategic capacity planning and the integration of quality management programs all are orchestrated to drive greater profitability over the long-tem.
Figure 3: Translating Compliance Into Cash at Johnson & Johnson
Source: (Johnson & Johnson Investor Relations, 2012)
Conclusion
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