35 days

That is the time we have spent facilitating design sprints with various teams across Novo Nordisk in 2022.

Re-imagining the future of gowning

Background

Excursions in the aseptic area is a major challenge in Novo Nordisk production.

One solution that has proven to help decrease the number of excursions in Brazil, has been supervised gowning. Imagine if we could scale this solution to other manufacturing sites, but rather than human supervision we use vision technology. And how do we create an experience that engages & empowers the operator in the gowning process?

Background

Excursions in the aseptic area is a major challenge in Novo Nordisk production.

One solution that has proven to help decrease the number of excursions in Brazil, has been supervised gowning. Imagine if we could scale this solution to other manufacturing sites, but rather than human supervision we use vision technology. And how do we create an experience that engages & empowers the operator in the gowning process?

To address these questions, we ran a Google Venture Design Sprint with the aim to combine the human centric aspects of gowning with the possibilities of vision technology.

To address these questions, we ran a Google Venture Design Sprint with the aim to combine the human centric aspects of gowning with the possibilities of vision technology.

Design sprint challenge

How might we utilise real-time data in the gowning process to reduce excursions and maintain human-centric productivity?

Design sprint challenge

How might we utilise real-time data in the gowning process to reduce excursions and maintain human-centric productivity?

The process & key findings

Together with a mixed team of experts across Novo Nordisk, we ran a one-week design sprint in order to uncover all of the challenges of the gowning process as well as possible solutions.

  • Proper gowning should take 15-30 minutes
  • Each operator gowns 2-3 times each day
  • Operators spend 2-3 hours in aseptic area at a time
  • There are between 20-100 gownings each day at each site

  • 1725 excursions each year globally
  • 1 excursion = 40 FTE hours in documentation
  • Excursions result in around 69.000 FTE hours per year in total
  • Root cause to excursions is a mystery, but speed is key
  • In Brazil supervised gowning resulted in reduction

  • Gap between new and experienced
  • Better training reduces errors
  • Retention rate is low in Denmark

  • There is a conflict of interest between management KPIs and SOP
  • 3 x more excursions are expected soon (FDA will test 3 x more)
  • New SOP requirements every second year
  • Sites are different – making standardisation difficult

Interested in more information?

We are here to help

Philip Schur Rørvig

psr@venzo.com
+45 40 54 40 70

Mikkel Rathje

mra@venzo.com
+45 26 79 80 75