Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
marketing and sales goals. For any type of organization, the most effective
individuals are those that build relationships with others throughout their
own and other functional areas.
There are some other organizational considerations. For example, the
quality control (QC) group is responsible for testing materials to judge
whether they are suitable for shipment to the customer. If a lot is defective,
they need to have the authority to reject it. This can be contrary to the desires
of a manufacturing group that is judged by pounds of product shipped. There-
fore, it is best if the QC group does not report to manufacturing. Everyone in
an organization has responsibility for quality but the quality assurance (QA)
group has special overarching responsibility. They preach quality throughout
the organization and are responsible for training and implementation of
quality programs. QA is responsible to make sure that the tests run by QC
are appropriate, done correctly, and relevant to customer needs. Because of
their role, it is usually best if the QA group is given some type of autonomy
and reports to upper management within the organization. Pharmaceuticals
need to be manufactured according to cGMP, current Good Manufacturing
Practices. These dictate such an organizational hierarchy for QA.
Within a group it is important that the necessary skills be present to
accomplish the required tasks. Often this dictates that within a group there is
a variety of people with different educational and experiential backgrounds.
Just as you would not want to field a major league baseball team with all
pitchers or all left-handed hitters, you want different skills present within the
work group. Similarly, just as a team perfectly suited for baseball is probably
terrible in hockey, a great basic research group might be terrible in quality
control. A group of people with the correct skill sets, aptitudes and excite-
ment for quality control might be terrible in basic research. It is common for
a work group to have members with remarkably different training such as a
collection of an organic chemist, a materials scientist, a chemical engineer
and several experienced technicians, some of whom may have manufacturing
experience. Education can range from Ph.D. to high school. Often there is an
even greater diversity in personalities. When in such a group it is important
for everyone to appreciate what the others bring to solve the tasks at hand.
It is even more important to be able to communicate well with each other.
Often in industry it is not necessarily the person that came from the most
prestigious school or that had the best scholastic record that is the most
effective. As simple as it sounds, the ability to work well with others and
learn from others is a characteristic of the most effective employee.
Smaller groups of people can be organized in traditional hierarchical
fashion with a group leader in charge. The title varies in different organiza-
tions and this role is often called supervisor or manager. The group leader is
usually responsible for communicating to other groups and functions within
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