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they were hired. This procedure, also followed with the sales staff, offers several important advantages. It impresses new men with the need for quality, underscores the fact that quality is indeed everybody's business, and, by placing them at what is truly a nerve center of the company, gives them an opportunity to become familiar with the raw materials that Pfizer uses and the entire line of products it produces. Pfizer's preoccupation with quality and quality control stems from a double root. The Pfizer seal is a guarantee that the company's industrial chemicals will live up to specifications. It is also a guarantee that the antibiotics, the vitamins, the hormones which the company manufactures will do what they are supposed to do—help the physician cure his patient. Morally there can be no greater compact than this, for life has not been laid in our hands to be treated lightly. Like most ethical considerations, this has a practical corollary. Essentially, a good reputation is based on quality and can spell the difference between growth or stagnation and, ultimately, even the fall of the auctioneer's hammer. A manufacturer who does not literally sweat over quality is unwittingly presiding over his own liquidation—and rightly so. Nowhere has this been better realized than in American mass production and particularly in the drug industry. In adapting our technology to their own needs, manufacturers overseas could pay us no higher form of flattery than to imitate our methods of statistical quality control. For the motto that "the cheapest thing to do with an unsatisfactory product is not to make it," is truly good business, as the Pfizer record—and the industry's—demonstrates. Thanks in part to the insurance provided by the Analytical Department and quality control, Pfizer's sales since 1945 have expanded from $27.5 million to $145.2 million. Given this kind of growth, the department has had to cover a lot of ground. Broadly, it is charged with: Developing and approving specifications of crude and finished materials for company-wide use Developing and publishing standard analysis and sampling techniques at all plants Providing technical supervision of analytical departments at all plants Providing analytical services and devising new test methods for research and development groups Organizing and staffing the headquarters Analytical Department and collaborating with other plant superintendents in the selection and training VOLUME
of Analytical Department personnel for both domestic and foreign operations Handling and satisfying customer product complaints Liaison with government control laboratories Maintenance of test notes on product batches In addition to its main plant at Brooklyn, Pfizer also manufactures at Groton, Conn., and Terre Haute, Ind. The Brooklyn and Groton installations produce a wide variety of industrial chemicals, antibiotics, vitamins, and steroids. At Terre Haute, in addition to antibiotics, Pfizer makes Vigofac, an animal growth factor, and other antibiotic and vitamin-fortified animal feed supplements. Analytical Department heads at all three plants report to the director of the department. The latter, through his assistant at Brooklyn, by far the largest of the company's control facilities, supervises the department's nine sections: antibiotics production, bulk chemicals, steroids, raw materials, analytical research, special testing, vitamins, office personnel, and product evaluation. Specifications for n e w products
More specifically, one of Analytical's key functions is to develop specifications for new products. In this area, the department has been kept busy, for last year, products not in existence in 1940 generated more than 80% of Pfizer's sales. In the past 3 years alone, the company has developed and brought to market 15 new major products in an even wider variety of dosage forms. All were turned out by one of the three methods around which Pfizer production revolves: fermentation, organic synthesis, and fermentation and synthesis combined. Long before it gets to the specification stage, however, the Analytical Department more often than not has been hard at work developing new tests for research. Thus, before Pfizer could begin producing streptomycin, for instance, Analytical devised methods which enabled research to differentiate streptomycin A from streptomycin B, and so helped to establish the salient fact that the former is far more active biologically than the latter. Development of assay methods
Similarly in the development of Terramycin, Analytical developed colorimetric and spectrophotometric assay methods by which that drug could be distinguished from other antibiotics then on the market. Likewise, the department devised identification tests for the drug reserpine. Useful in the
2 7, N O . 1 1 , N O V E M B E R 1 9 5 5
PRECISION
makes the complete line in Research Laboratory Equipment Precision
Scientific Company
manufac-
tures a COMPLETE SELECTION or more than
1500
items
for
laboratories. Quality
use
in
research
control and
high
manufacturing standards at our factory assure you of top performance on a n y item name.
stamped Always
with the specify
"Precision"
Precision
when
you order items like these:
Freas Ovens G r a v i t y or m e c h a n i c a l convection, f l o o r , table or w a l l mounting types. Hazard-safe, e x p l o s i o n - p r o o f and vacuum models. Also incubators, sterilizers, conditioning a n d annealing ovens and humidity cabinets.
Petroleum Testing Apparatus A l l types of equipment for the petroleum laboratory. Unique Front-View Distillation Units shown promote accuracy and easier use by centralizing a l l controls a n d reading instruments in front. More compact, space-saving design.
Metallurgical H a n d Polisher Ideal for small laboratories or for standardized hand polishing procedures in larger labs. Enclosed drive mechanism and lifetime sealed motor assure long, dependable operat i o n . Exceptionally quiet.
" T i m e - I t " Electrical Stop Watch Large, legible indicating counter easier to read than conventional watches. Readings to 1 / 1 0 secondl Can be re-set to zero from any reading or successive readings can be t o t a l e d . Write
for free Bulletins on any of the above equipment.
Precision Scientific Company 3 7 2 5 West Cortland Street Chicago 4 7 Circle Nos. 13 A 1, 13 A-2, 13 A3, 13 A-4 an Readers' Service Card, page 55 A
13 A
