Baxter HealthCare Corp. Mountain Home, Ark.ByWilliam H. Miller Walk onto the production floor at Baxter Healthcare Corp.s 584,000-sq-ft plant in Mountain Home, Ark., and you immediately are struck by how clean it is. Not a speck of dirt or grime is in sight. The floor itself is polished to a mirrorlike sheen. Little inventory clutters the aisles. Employees don freshly laundered smocks and hairnets and wash their hands with antiseptic soap in enclosed clean rooms each time they enter their work areas. Finished products are sterilized, many by an innovative electronic-beam system, and await shipment in a sanitary warehouse area. But this isnt surprising. The plant makes medical products, a highly regulated industry, so you
expect it to be clean. Only when you walk farther into the plant and tour several of its 16 manufacturing departments does it hit you: Yes, this truly is a world-class facility. That is apparent when you see just three things:
- Incredible product diversity. Some 250 different disposable finished products -- ranging from kidney-dialysis filters and blood-therapy kits to intravenous needles and bone-marrow collection containers -- roll off its production lines for outside customers. Another 700 subassemblies go to other Baxter plants, 21 of them outside the U.S. This profusion of products, representing a mind-boggling number of plastic components, in turn is produced from medical-grade sheeting that is made at the plant; the facility is one of the largest medical-grade sheet-extrusion operations in the world.
- A dazzling array of automated equipment. Much of it designed by the plants own engineers, its arranged in well-conceived manufacturing cells. Signs above the equipment proudly name the employees who "own" it -- attesting to the importance the plant puts on empowerment. All the plants 1,583 employees are members of empowered natural work teams.
- Yards upon yards of wall space covered with bulletin boards. Some of them publicize employee teams and individuals for special accomplishment. Others carry news and announcements -- from both the plant and individual departments -- including the weekly "Hot Sheet" newsletter that flows from the weekly managers staff meeting. Still others display quality, safety, production, and other plant-floor data. Its obvious that the plant has a zealous commitment to employee recognition, employee communication, and measurement.
- Manufactures some 250 different finished medical products for outside customers and some 700 subassemblies for other Baxter plants.
- Develops technologies for later transfer to other Baxter plants.
- On a typical product that the plant continues to manufacture -- cell-separator kits -- first-pass yield improved 71% during the last five years to 99.4%.
- Employees average 20 days of formal training a year (production employees, 24).
- All 1,583 employees are members of empowered natural work teams.
- 34 benchmarking studies in last three years.
- Inventory turns for raw material and work-in-process up from 16.5 in 1993 to 25.0 in 1997.
- Develops an average of 10 new products a year.
- Cost reductions average 4% annually.
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