Lead time was reduced from 10 to 3 weeks

CHALLENGE

At Novo Nordisk Diabetes Finished Products, Manufacturing Development (ManDev), the task was to support the global factories in streamlining operations and creating new product solutions. The organization needed a renewed and unified strategic focus to mobilize approximately 500 employees and leaders in collaboration with internal customers and key stakeholders.

SOLUTION

In an initial and intensive effort, the leadership defined an overarching focus, which was followed by interviews with key customers and stakeholders. Based on insights from these interviews, the organization initiated a series of high-priority cross-functional strategic initiatives and allocated cross-functional teams to realize them. To generate new knowledge, perspectives, ownership, and results, 40 middle managers, in collaboration with their teams and departments, defined an additional 40 local initiatives, all linked to the overarching strategy. These initiatives were realized in 100-day action tracks.

RESULT

Strategic initiatives that previously took a long time to realize could now be accomplished much faster through a unified and strategically focused mobilization effort. A concrete example is the reduction of lead time in quality control from 10 to 3 weeks. Here, a cross-functional group was formed to tackle the clearly defined task. Participants in the group expressed that they had achieved the task with a much better result than they initially believed possible.