Having established that the organisation of teams was the way forward, it was decided that the new Novo Nordisk NovoLet^® production facility would implement team thinking from day one. All new recruits were advised of this decision during the job interview.

NovoLet^® is a disposable injection system for insulin developed by Novo Nordisk. The production of NovoLet^® in Hillerød in Denmark currently employs 75 employees. Production began in January 1998 and currently includes assembly, labelling and packing.

Guiding principles
The organisation of the production teams was built on a number of principles. Firstly, each employee should have a real influence on his or her work situation. The relevant information and tools should also be readily available. The teams had to be multi-skilled. They should define and work towards common goals. Feedback should be given and goals should be followed up to see if they had been met. As the emphasis was to be on customer orientation, employees should put all their efforts into value-adding activities and the solving of production problems. All employees should be given opportunities for development through training, job rotation, etc. Finally, continuous innovation and improvements should be encouraged.

Personal chemistry is very important in a team. That is why the members of the team are given an important say in who is recruited to join them.

Team composition
To achieve the required results each team must possess the skills necessary to fulfil the assignments. The roles and responsibilities fall into three main groups: Production Teams, Team Facilitators and Experts. The Production Teams comprise operators and technicians who deal with the day-to-day manufacturing process. The Team Facilitators support the teams managerially by helping them to become more self-sufficient. Experts are available as consultants and can float between other production teams and Novo Nordisk sites. Additional teams include a Laboratory Team for chemical and microbiological analysis and a Support Team for quality assurance, logistics, service, computer systems, etc.

One year on
It was decided that performance should be measured using a number of agreed indicators such as the results of climate surveys, the number of orders dispatched on time, delivery time, lead-time, number of customer complaints, etc.

At the end of the first year of production, the NovoLet^® facility had satisfied 95% of its targets. Technical problems accounted for the shortfall. In 1999, work will be done to solve these problems. This will not only make production run more smoothly but will remove a cause of irritation. Downtime consumes time and energy that could be better focused on making the team structures work smoothly. In 1999, hopefully the stress reported by some team members will decrease. Furthermore, the dialogue with employees on attitudes, values and responsibility will be strengthened to facilitate the running of the team structures.