New Methods and Materials

With site development projects in progress, the Operations team continues to seek greater efficiency and smoother product delivery.

Over the weekend of September 23rd, the Milford facilities team and the Gaithersburg Materials Management team transformed the walk-in refrigerator space to attain a 32% increase in storage space. Repurposing a high-density storage solution, formerly installed in the Milford freezer, was the key to this successful transition. The racking is able to store much more material in the same space as the racks glide along a track, creating a pick aisle only where needed.

In Maryland, a returning customer recently placed a $1.2M order for delivery. The order is currently in production with the custom OEM team and the team plans to deliver on time and in full. They look forward to many more orders like this one.

Facilities installed two picnic tables with umbrellas in the Maryland courtyard in response to a suggestion from an employee to the senior leadership team. The staff uses them on a daily basis. The Ops team encourages more suggestions to enhance office life!

The Maryland planning department, with help from IT and facilities, implemented a Kanban flow board to better manage and track jobs on the shop floor. This visual management system will provide real time updates on jobs within the production pipeline. This will allow us to ensure delivery timelines are met and we continue to meet customer needs.

The Native Antigen Company, along with BioSearch Technologies from the Genomics Division, hosted a very successful opening ceremony of their new facility on September 14^th. 

A plaque was unveiled by Dame Sarah Gilbert DBE and Dr Theresa Lambe OBE, the co-creators of the Oxford/Astrazeneca COVID-19 vaccine, who gave a thrilling question and answer session to the 100 attendees about the challenges they had faced during the pandemic, and what the future held for vaccines.

At Technopath, colleagues involved in lean qualifications and their sponsors attended a Septermber “Lean for Sustainability” conference in UL.

The team were presented to by a diverse group of companies and consultancies on their approaches, successes and failures as they applied lean methodologies to drive environmental and sustainability improvements to their sites and businesses.
They also had the chance to review and vote on posters that were outputs of the most recent cohort of Master Black Belt candidates in the UL course. Many of these projects were very relevant to some of the issues faced at TCD and demonstrated how OpEx methodologies can be applied to help solve them.
TCD’s own Brian Barry and Catherine Laffan will present their projects as part of this forum upon completion of their Master Black Belt course in September 2023.

This was a valuable and timely event that gave the TCD team an insight into some sustainability best practices ahead of their site expansion project, which will contribute to LGC’s corporate commitment to carbon net zero.