Digital instructions for pharmaceutical manufacturing
Summary
Working for a global leader in healthcare with $35 billion in sales like Sanofi, was a challenging yet rewarding experience. I had the opportunity to collaborate with industry leaders and mastered the process of navigating my designs through the Good Manufacturing Practices approval processes. I designed 5 unique websites and manufacturing hardware intra-company initiative. The 6 projects I created UI for were, Bio Academy, Learning Technology, Competency Based Learning, Learning Services, Manufacturing Science and Technology and Electronic Work Instructions. I worked on the Electronic Work Instructions initiative (EWI) for the last 6 months I was there. The EWI initiative was a pilot project to digitize 500+ manufacturing processes’ instructions for floor workers in Framingham, Massachusetts.
Electronic Work Instructions (EWI)
Electronic Work Instruction initiative (EWI), was first thought of in the team I was part of, Biologics Learning and Development (L&D). Our team was able to get buy-in from Sanofi’s leadership to pilot the project in one of the company’s newest factories. In short, the project would move the company from supplying the manufacturing workers’ complicated paper instructions for operating the technical machinery, to providing easily accessible digital instructions. The tablets supporting the instructions utilized rich media and simple steps to guide the lab workers.
The Problem
Paper instructions are easy to misplace, confusing and hard to parse through. Paper instructions also pose a contamination risk and like any official operational document, are heavily audited by the FDA.
The Solution
Digital instructions with an intuitive table of contents, short and clear tasks guided by images and videos. Digital instructions can be launched via a URL or a QR code. EWIs can be revised quickly and remotely within compliance. They also pose a minimal contamination risk.
In this project I helped with the project plan and product design. In the first 4 months I worked with manufacturing staff to implement improvements to maximize simplicity and clarity. I also had to support manufacturing leadership in their effort to capture all EWI revisions and submit them through the appropriate FDA compliant processes.
Above is an example of the EWI interface used by factory workers to produce the life-saving drugs that that site specialized in.
Next Project: Cross Platform Interlopability
Apple - Concept
John Lloyd
UI Designer
Boston, MA
john.s.f.lloyd@gmail.com