MGT 314; Sections 1; summer 2021

Quote from the Article Relationship to MGT 314

“But as soon as pressure built in the array of - Optimization strategy of Capacity
pumps, tubes and tanks at the plant on Sept. (Bottleneck equipment).
11, it became clear something was wrong, - Strategy; Scale-based strategy.
Pfizer team leaders told The Washington Post
in the most detailed public accounting of the
company’s efforts to produce mass quantities
of vaccine.”
“When operators checked a vat at the end of - Process Yield; Products that are
the production run, most of the key ingredient incomplete/defective cannot be
— the fat molecule encasing the messenger included in the output.
RNA — was missing.”
“The company and its vaccine partner - Good Capacity Planning and
BioNTech would ultimately master the job of successful implementation resulted in
churning out large batches of mRNA vaccine, competitive advantage; Creating a
making it the clearest winner among drug barrier to discourage new entrants.
companies to emerge from the pandemic. The
company is producing vaccine in greater
quantities than any other company and has
secured an advantage in the quest to use
next-generation mRNA technology for
treatments of other diseases.”
“Pfizer’s ambitious production objective - (Failure in establishing achievable
ultimately forced the company to accept goals?)
government help to procure vital supplies,
defeating its earlier efforts to avoid a closer
partnership with federal health authorities.”
“The company says it expects to make enough - Short-termed forecast; since the
for 3 billion shots in 2021, twice as much as forecast is given based on the ongoing
initial projections and enough of the two-dose operations of the company.
immunization for 1.5 billion people. It has - Accounting Forecast; Estimate of
said it will make $26 billion in vaccine sales sales revenue.
in 2021, which would make it the biggest- - Judgmental forecast; Opinions given
selling medicine ever.” by the executives of the company.
“Pfizer had announced its partnership with - 2 of the Major Trends in businesses;
the German biotech company BioNTech to Globalization and Outsourcing.
develop and manufacture its experimental
coronavirus vaccine. BioNTech had already
identified how it would make an mRNA
vaccine to fight coronavirus, but it needed a
big production partner with the engineering
and distribution expertise to make vaccine on
a global scale.”
“In Puurs, Belgium, the Pfizer production - Feedback in the Process of Value
team adopted the lessons learned at Addition.
Kalamazoo and conducted a successful
engineering run on Sept. 14.”
“But the cumbersome filtering machines - Improving productivity by identifying
would continue to slow down production. bottleneck equipment.
Pfizer added more filter area to increase - Increase in the Design capacity of the
throughput and double batch size, from 1.7 facility
million to more than 3 million doses. Later, it
devised a system to regenerate used filters,
because of severe shortages.”
“Pfizer had found it could not purchase - (Economies of scale; lesser
enough dry ice from its suppliers, so it built construction costs considering the vast
its own, with five CO2 tanks towering just size of the production facility of
outside the plant walls.” Pfizer?)
Group Case Study Report. # 1