Operational Excellence (OE) is the Group-wide program Merck introduced in 2006 to continuously improve entrepreneurial processes. The purpose of Operational Excellence is to achieve the most economic and most efficient level of operation in all our production facilities. This calls for a working culture that makes continuous improvement and increases in performance possible. For this purpose, we leverage the expertise and knowledge of our employees. All Merck production sites were included in the program in 2009 and 2010. As of 2011, the Millipore sites will be included.
The program is divided into six management areas: targets, change management, production, supply chain, innovation and technology as well as people. In turn, these areas comprise a total of 42 bricks, including Company Values, Employee Development, Training and EHS, which can be augmented if necessary. For example, the brick Safety Culture was added in 2010 in order to improve occupational safety even further.
Each year, top management defines the Group-wide priorities for implementing the bricks. The sites can additionally define their own priorities. Apart from ongoing key topics such as environment protection and occupational safety, the focus in past years has mainly been on the globalization of structures and processes as well as efficiency increases.
Projects that were especially successful at implementing individual bricks are recognized at the sites each year. One such project in 2010 was the Lean & Six-Sigma database known as LASSIE, which has meanwhile been implemented Group-wide. All Lean & Six Sigma projects are registered in the database. This enables Corporate Controlling to directly assess the savings made possible by the projects.
Since the implementation of the program, considerable productivity increases have been achieved in various areas. At Merck Serono, for example, productivity has increased by 25% to 30% in different production areas. In addition, customer service levels increased, the number of workplace accidents fell by 50% and the high quality level was maintained. The program will be continued and developed further on a regular basis.
