We all are aware of the economic sudden stop due to coronavirus impact on the global economy. This pandemic will impact many small to mid-size companies and companies will assess on which roles to keep during downsizing. Further leaders look for the position which don does not have direct impact on company’s core operations. I have identified the following roles for various graduates which are critical to manufacturing or core operations.
Science Graduates -Biotechnology, Biology, Chemistry, Biochemistry and similar field
Manufacturing Roles: Pharmaceutical companies need manufacturing associates who hold the fort from the front and produce drugs for the patient world. These roles are the least impact by finance downsize as experience manufacturing associates are trained and known to manufacturing operations. Manufacturing roles range from associates to specialists to supervisors.
Cleanroom cleaning associates: Manufacturing companies need associates and technicians to support daily cleanroom cleaning activities. Equipment cleaning operation associates to support daily cleaning, environmental monitoring, line clearance, and disinfection. This role is less impacted as cleaning and manufacturing operation are critical to drug product manufacturing.
Microbiology/ QC Raw material / IPQA- Microbiology department support water sampling, environmental sampling, validation sampling and finished drug release samples. Similarly QC raw material contributes daily in all raw materials coming into pharmaceutical companies. Further in-process quality assurance support manufacturing operations by taking in-process samples and ensure execution of GMP operations. As these operations are critical to routine manufacturing and thus less impacted by downsizing.
Engineer Graduates -Mechanical Engineer, Biomedical Engineer, R&D Engineer, Design Engineer, and similar field
Utility/ Metro-logy/ facilities/ HVAC- Pharmaceutical manufacturing run with the close support of various utilities such as compress air, water system, HVAC, facilities, and instrumentation. Selecting roles such as maintenance, instrument, and utility engineer or associates will help you survive a tough time. Engineers with time gain a lot of troubleshooting experience of manufacturing plants and thus valuable assets to the organization. Therefore less impacted and considered critical skills employees.
Process engineers/ Investigators/ Validation and clinical development: Process engineers support day to day operations by assisting the manufacturing team in one too many deviations. Process engineer and validation support team help manufacturing operation and reoccurring validation activities such as HVAC validation, process validation, cleaning validation, and qualifications.
Conclusion: When the economy is growing, company shares are an all-time high, products are on high sales nonessential jobs and projects are easy to survive. However, during the economy slow down to make a wise decision in selecting roles that are non impacted by economic impact and critical to organization. Further think about gaining skills, engagement in re-occurring activities, and position with direct impact on manufacturing. Good luck