Miltenyi Biotec
            

Miltenyi Biotec is a globally operating biotechnology company with headquarters in Bergisch Gladbach, Germany. For more than 30 years, the company has been a pioneer in biomedical research and cell therapy. With its products and services, Miltenyi Biotec supports scientists all over the world in basic research, translational sciences, and clinical research. Miltenyi Biotec was founded as a startup in 1989 by Stefan Miltenyi and currently has approximately 4,000 employees in 23 countries.

Miltenyi Biotec looks back on 30 years of successful growth and has taken the right steps to keep fueling its success—with the goal of boosting efficiency and transparency companywide.

Transparency that opens up new opportunities: business process management (BPM) at Miltenyi Biotec

"The biggest difficulty was convincing longtime employees of the need for seamless, harmonized processes," states Markus Lohrmann, Corporate Lead, BPM, at Miltenyi Biotec, summarizing the challenges involved in the BPM project with ARIS Enterprise. The need for uniform processes is especially urgent in a company that is on a growth course. After all, Miltenyi Biotec isn't a startup anymore. It has been growing and thriving—and has topped its own forecasts by more than 20 percent every year. But in a highly regulated environment, growth can be problematic if there is a lack of transparency. So, it's a good thing that the company already has ARIS Enterprise in-house through partner Scheer—the right tool to support the company's transition from a startup to an international, certified player.

Miltenyi Biotec's leadership was convinced that although the campus atmosphere within the company is a creative hub for individual potential, harmonized processes and structures which are ideally standardized need to be established to drive the company's strategic goals. "The business had set a clear course—internationalization, integrated quality management, improved collaboration, and improved efficiency and sustainability throughout the company," says Lohrmann. "It was also important to involve employees accordingly, to train them and motivate them to join in."

Certified efficiency managed from the process cockpit

At the beginning of the project, a process map was created with a role model to support the goal of creating a single valid source for process information. A process cockpit that all users could access was developed based on the structured documentation and a BPM framework to provide the basis for further digitalization and for meeting regulatory requirements. It is user-friendly, intuitive, and customized for Miltenyi Biotec.

The first highlight of the project was the ISO 9001 certification, which certifies that all of Miltenyi Biotec’s general processes are optimally aligned with each other and improved continuously. This certification is an internationally recognized seal for the highest possible quality of products and services. In the meantime, the company has also received the rest of the certifications that are important for the industry, including the crucial ISO 13485 and MDR certificates. Meeting the quality standards has already paid off for Miltenyi Biotec: The ISO certification alone has increased the company's revenue by five percent.

"BPM with ARIS has helped us tremendously—not just with regard to process transparency and efficiency, but with becoming a highly efficient company overall. We've moved up to the big leagues, so to speak," says Lohrmann.

Overview of further outcomes:

• Collaboration
  In addition to the essential obligation to meet regulatory requirements, Miltenyi Biotec established the basis for further scalability through improved collaboration with the help of BPM. Whenever processes are involved, ARIS graphics are used, employees are trained regularly, and acceptance for the BPM tool is high. The more than 154,130 views over the last year prove it.


• Product development
  Using the BPM software as the valid source for process information also impacts product development—in compliance with regulatory requirements, of course. "Our product development is more transparent than ever before," notes Lohrmann. In the future, the key performance indicators (KPIs) in this area will certainly show improvements—from faster development stages to time-to-market. The BPM team at Miltenyi Biotec is convinced of it.


• Processing times
  Information is already available about overall process speeds: The speeds for some processes have decreased by more than 70 percent between 2019 and 2021. The process owners are now working on making other strategically important processes measurable.

Integration and internationalization go hand in hand

With BPM, Miltenyi Biotec is on the right path to becoming a highly efficient, integrated company that is positioned internationally. The biotech company earns more than 60 percent of its revenue in the U.S. Based on its standardized processes, Miltenyi Biotec can use ARIS Enterprise to unite integration and internationalization, integrate corporate acquisitions, and pursue sustainability goals. Silo thinking is a thing of the past. These days, transparency and harmonized structures are what determine who can succeed in the global market. Next steps include evaluating processes further with KPIs and integrating the customer journey, so Miltenyi Biotec can better understand and address its customers’ needs.