文档介绍：Six Sigma strategy applied to the pharmaceutical industry - how customer benefit MBA Thesis 2009
School of Management
Blekinge Institute of Technology
Six Sigma strategy applied to the 
pharmaceutical industry ‐ how customers 
benefit.
MBA Thesis
By
Maria Jernelid and Steven Roan
Supervisor
Klaus Solberg Søilen
1
Six Sigma strategy applied to the pharmaceutical industry - how customer benefit MBA Thesis 2009
ABSTRACT
The pharmaceutical industry is extremely large, dynamic and a highly profitable industry.
Pattison and Warren ( 2003, p 1 ) suggest that in 2002 the pharmaceutical industry pulled
in profits that far exceed other industries and accounted for profits “ five-and-a-half
times greater than the median for all industries represented in the Fortune 500”. Drug
discovery and development is however very expensive and the industry is plagued with
drug failures during the development stage. Including the costs of failures, developing
and taking a new drug to market, the estimated cost for drug development is in the region
of US$ Billion and continues to grow year on year (Gassmann et al. 2008).The
industry is now faced with finding ways to improve productivity while meeting product
and customer, regulatory and efficiency demands.
A couple of issues differentiate the pharmaceutical industry from most other industries.
Firstly, consumers of pharmaceutical products often have very little say in the products
that they use. Secondly, the pharmaceutical industry is one of only a couple of industries
in which the patent protection essentially equals the product.
Six Sigma can be defined as many things, and to different people it may have different
meanings. Some will define Six Sigma as a methodology that aims to produce near
perfect production process. In numerical term, the vast amount of literat