Multi-resource planning and recruitment funnel improved operational efficiency

'We faced some interesting challenges in 2022,' says Dr Maurits Vissers, Director of Operations. 'The COVID-19 pandemic demanded a lot from our organisation and our reserves, and it created a backlog in study execution due to lockdowns and recruitment difficulties. In addition, the pandemic actually came during a substantial growth spurt of the organisation. And that growth is continuing. The combination of external setbacks and internal growth was certainly challenging.'

When Vissers was appointed Director of Operations, an effort was already underway to define opportunities to improve efficiency. 'Thanks to our fantastic team, we managed to make a huge efficiency improvement in a very short time, and we can now say that we execute more than 90% of the unit planning on time. This is actually very high considering the expected uncertainty inherent in phase 1 clinical trials,' Vissers says proudly. In the first phase of clinical drug development, many factors may contribute to uncertainty, for example the occurrence of a serious adverse effect in the final animal studies, logistical problems with the production of the new compound, or unexpected adverse effects in human participants.

The main driver behind this success is the introduction of a recruitment funnel and improved multi-resource planning. ‘More than in the past, we now base our recruitment efforts on a larger overview of all studies, with a wider time horizon and a differentiation based on variables such as study duration,' says Vissers. 'This allows us to better identify recruitment bottlenecks in advance, so we can adapt our planning if necessary. It's the same with all of our planning. We used to base this primarily on our clinical research unit capacity, but we have now switched to a systematic resource-based approach. Bottlenecks may arise in any crucial resource: recruitment, equipment, database construction capacity, staffing - you name it. By better defining and monitoring all the resources, we can now predict where bottlenecks may arise and act on those predictions. Even better, we started building a new tailor-made multi-resource planning system for our operations to further optimise this process, so we can accommodate further growth.’  While this system is still under development, the impact on the organisation's efficiency is already very noticeable. Vissers: 'You can see how people's job satisfaction increases when everything runs smoothly and according to the planning. That's really rewarding.'