A double case study applying action research methodology was conducted in two pharmaceutical preparation manufacturers in the Netherlands to improve their manufacturing systems by implementing time-based manufacturing (TBM) practices. Following the diagnosis phase, the situation of each Company was analysed and suitable improvement interventions were selected for implementation in the Case Companies. At the end of the action research project, semi-structured interviews were taken in each Company a year later, and the achieved results of the improvement programmes were collected and analysed. This research extends the existing theory of time-based competition and demonstrates that TBM practices apply also in the pharmaceutical preparation manufacturing industry. Furthermore, this study shows how to improve TBM practices and reduce the throughput time by providing the route for improvement and implementation. Although the first Case Company did not improve the core TBM practices and manufacturing performance, its infrastructure improved through the implementation of an ERP system and further enhancement of its quality management system, illustrating that the design of the infrastructure is a key factor to become a time-based competitor. The second Case Company succeeded to improve the 2 TBM practices and throughput processes resulting in the reduction of the order cycle time and increase of the delivery dependability. Based on the data of the two Case Companies, this study demonstrated the relationship between these two manufacturing performance parameters, which indicates that manufacturers may strive for both delivery speed and delivery reliability using the same improvement plan. Adopting TBM is a long journey of many years and needs a continuous improvement infrastructure.

This thesis addresses corporate approaches to CSR stakeholder engagement in the pharmaceutical industry in the UK and Germany. Its objective is to undertake mainly exploratory qualitative research to investigate how the selected sample manages CSR. The data was primarily accessed and collected from senior executives within major pharmaceutical companies. Multiple research methods were employed to gather rich new empirical evidence which focuses on the CSR practices and perceptions of CSR managers in both countries. To examine how this ¿sensitive¿ sector responds to what could be termed the ¿CSR Challenge¿, a critical realist perspective and six codes were chosen to map the practices and to compare similarities and differences between the two countries. This research contributes to the academic literature in this field by filling significant gaps in an area which was previously under-investigated. Ultimately, the findings are employed to examine a prespecified framework which was originally developed by the author based on secondary data in separate research. Overall, the results inform, re-examine, and improve this recently published framework. The updated explanatory framework which results from the research is the main conceptual contribution of the thesis. It serves as a management tool which includes the contextual factors which influence decision-makers¿ practices and perceptions portrayed as a set of inter-related management steps. This new conceptualisation is designed to be of practical use for decision-makers when managing their stakeholder engagement activities. As a result, this research is essentially applied and normative in nature. In addition, this work presents an original contribution to the literature in its field which should be of interest to academics.

Yes

No description available.

The traditional quality culture in the pharmaceutical industry is driven by the regulatory process of marketing authorisation and manufacturing authorisation. These components of the South African regulatory control system are exclusively technically-orientated, with no managerial focus. This study identifies several quality management principles which could find general application in the pharmaceutical industry. The research compares the current regulatory control system with the total quality concept, and highlights the positive contribution which the total quality approach is able to make in terms of its field of reference; the strategic business value of quality; quality policy formulation; the quality organisational structure; enhanced operations management; and management's control over quality costs, in particular / Economic & Management Sciences / M.Com. (Business Economics)

The traditional quality culture in the pharmaceutical industry is driven by the regulatory process of marketing authorisation and manufacturing authorisation. These components of the South African regulatory control system are exclusively technically-orientated, with no managerial focus. This study identifies several quality management principles which could find general application in the pharmaceutical industry. The research compares the current regulatory control system with the total quality concept, and highlights the positive contribution which the total quality approach is able to make in terms of its field of reference; the strategic business value of quality; quality policy formulation; the quality organisational structure; enhanced operations management; and management's control over quality costs, in particular / Economic and Management Sciences / M.Com. (Business Economics)

by Cheung Chi-kong, Chu Hok-keung, Ting Wai-tong. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1990. / Bibliography: leaf 83. / Chapter I. --- BACKGROUND --- p.1 / Introduction --- p.1 / The Origin of Chinese Medicine --- p.2 / A Definition of Chinese Medicine --- p.5 / A Survey --- p.6 / Chapter II. --- LITERATURE REVIEW --- p.7 / Chapter III. --- METHODOLOGY --- p.14 / Data Sources --- p.14 / Sample Design --- p.15 / Data Processing --- p.16 / Chapter IV. --- FINDINGS FROM THE STUDY --- p.17 / Chinese Herbal Drugs --- p.17 / Chinese Health Foods --- p.23 / Further Analysis --- p.29 / Chapter V. --- SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS --- p.37 / Summary --- p.37 / Chinese Herbal Drugs : Recommendations --- p.39 / Chinese Health Foods : Recommendations --- p.52 / APPENDIX --- p.65 / Profiles of Respondents --- p.65 / Questionnaire (English/Chinese Version) --- p.68 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.83

Submitted by Vanessa Barreto Costa (vanessabarreto@hotmail.com) on 2017-04-13T01:33:36Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação 2017 - Vanessa Barreto Costa - APA.pdf: 1531182 bytes, checksum: b13035225ca5431228ad38395aef2d85 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Pamela Beltran Tonsa (pamela.tonsa@fgv.br) on 2017-04-17T12:17:03Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação 2017 - Vanessa Barreto Costa - APA.pdf: 1531182 bytes, checksum: b13035225ca5431228ad38395aef2d85 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-04-17T12:28:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação 2017 - Vanessa Barreto Costa - APA.pdf: 1531182 bytes, checksum: b13035225ca5431228ad38395aef2d85 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-03-05 / O objetivo dessa dissertação é investigar como as políticas regulatórias podem impactar a resiliência da cadeia de suprimentos através da avaliação de seu impacto nas capabilities formadoras de resiliência. Foram feitas 14 entrevistas semiestruturadas com gerentes de quatro empresas da área médica e farmacêutica e 1 associação de classe no Brasil. A seleção de tais indústrias é relevante, primeiramente devido ao alto nível de regulamentação ao longo destas cadeias de suprimentos e também devido sua criticidade já que, rupturas nessas cadeias de suprimentos podem colocar em risco vidas que dependem destes produtos. Os resultados indicam que a complexidade, tempo e precauções adicionais resultantes da regulamentação, associados a problemas burocráticos e processuais do órgão regulador no Brasil reduzem as capabilities de flexibilidade/redundância, velocidade e visibilidade. Os resultados também enfatizam a importância da indústria médica e farmacêutica construir resiliência na cadeia de suprimentos durante fase de preparação. Como contribuição gerencial esta pesquisa fornece um maior entendimento sobre os desafios para se construir cadeias de suprimentos resilientes nestas industrias no Brasil. Esta pesquisa contribui para a literatura investigando fatores externos na resiliência das cadeias de suprimentos, ao mesmo tempo que expande a pesquisa sobre fatores redutores de resiliência. / The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate how regulatory policies may impact supply chain resilience, through the evaluation of their impacts on the formative resilience capabilities. 14 semi-structured interviews were conducted with managers of four medical and pharmaceutical companies and 1 industry association in Brazil. The selection of such industries is relevant, firstly due to the high level of government regulation along their supply chains. Secondly, due to their criticality, as supply chain disruptions may put lives that depend on medical and pharmaceutical products in danger. The results indicate that the complexity, time and additional precautions resulting from the regulation, associated with the bureaucratic and processual issues of the regulatory body in Brazil reduce the capabilities of flexibility/redundancy, velocity and visibility. In addition, the results emphasize the importance that the medical and pharmaceutical industry builds supply chain resilience in the preparedness phase. As a managerial contribution, this research provides a greater understanding about the challenges around building resilient supply chains in these industries in Brazil. This research contributes to the literature by investigating environmental factors in supply chain resilience. It also expands the research about supply chain resilience reducers.

It is frequently argued that the high costs of clinical trials prior to the admission of new pharmaceuticals are stifling innovation. At the same time, regulation of the access to markets is often justified on the basis of consumers` inability to detect the true quality of a product. We examine these arguments from an information economic perspective by setting a framework where the incentives to invest in R&D are influenced by the information structure prevailing when the product is launched in the market at a later stage. In this setting, by changing the information structure, regulation (or the lack of) can thus indirectly affect R&D efforts. More formally, we construct a moral hazard - cum - adverse selection model in which a pharmaceutical firm exerts an unobservable effort towards developing an innovative (high quality) drug (moral hazard) and then announces the (unobservable) quality outcome to an uninformed regulator and/or consumers (adverse selection). We compare the outcomes in regard to innovation effort and expected welfare under two regimes: (i) regulation, where products undergo a clinical trial designed to ascertain product quality at the point of market access; and (ii) laissez-faire with free entry, where the revelation of quality is left to the market process. Results show that whether or not innovation is greater in the presence of entry regulation crucially depends on the efficacy of the trial in identifying (poor) quality, on the probability that unknown qualities are revealed in the market process, and on the preference and cost structure. The welfare ranking of the two regimes depends on the differential effort incentive and on the net welfare gain from implementing full information instantaneously. For example, in settings of vertical monopoly, vertical differentiation and horizontal differentiation with no variable cost of quality, entry regulation tends to be the preferred regime if the effort incentive under pooling is relatively low and profits do not count too much towards welfare. A complementary numerical Analysis shows how the outcomes vary with the market and cost structure. (authors' abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in Business Administration (MBA), Business Studies Unit, Durban University of Technology, 2008 / The pharmaceutical industry is in the midst of a fundamental transformation. Time and cost constraints are forcing marketers to search for new ways to maintain and grow brand awareness. The amount of time that doctors allow for representatives to market their products is becoming less and less and as a result products are not getting the exposure they used to. Organisations that find innovative ways to maintain exposure of their products may gain a competitive advantage over those organisations that rely on traditional marketing methods. The prolific increase in the use of the internet may provide pharmaceutical organisations with a complementary channel to market their products. The objective of this study is to determine the levels of internet technology adoption among general practitioners. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is one of the most influential research models in studies of the determinants of information systems/ information technology (IS/IT) acceptance. In TAM, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are hypothesised and empirically supported as fundamental determinants of user acceptance of a given IS/IT. Using TAM, this study sets out to determine general practitioners’ intention to use the internet as a source of pharmaceutical information. The literature review provides an extensive evaluation on the development of TAM and its application in different technologies. Based on these findings, the researcher developed this study to investigate internet technology acceptance in the pharmaceutical industry. Use is made of the descriptive survey method and data is retrieved from a sample of 105 general practitioners in Kwazulu-Natal. The observation is made via the benefit of a questionnaire. The process of sampling is that of convenient sampling. The analysis is quantitative and makes use of statistical analysis appropriate for the data. Analysis of the survey results produces useful insights into the factors influencing internet technology adoption by general practitioners. When analysing the independent variables, respondents were not in strong agreement about the perceived usefulness nor the perceived ease of use of internet technology as a source of pharmaceutical information. However, positive results from the relationships between the independent (perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use) and dependent variables (attitude and intention to use) provide valuable data with which organisations may develop internet-based marketing strategies. Based on the survey findings, recommendations using the Beynon-Davies (2004) Internet Adoption Model are suggested.