An APAC update

In good company

by Emily Williams

​Once a year, all employees of Cook Australia get together to reflect on the year that was and celebrate the achievements of colleagues and friends.

Coordination, led by Travel and Events Coordinator Kimberlee Calvert, starts 12 months prior and throughout the year a lot of thought and consideration goes into the presentation of the program and what it ultimately means an audience of more than 500 people.

Cook Australia Managing Director Samih Nabulsi opened Company Day 2018 with a reflection of our work over the last 12 months with an overview of Transformation, quality systems, corrective and preventivie actions (CAPAs), regulatory and manufacturing. He then shared that the company focus for 2019 will be on people, employee support and development, and communication. Mark Muller, director of Finance for Asia-Pacific (APAC), provided an overview of the company’s financial position in a light and insightful way with many pictures and few spreadsheets.

Our manufacturing segment was headed up by the awesome foursome of Operations Manager Leigh Huffer, Manufacturing Engineering Manager Mark Carleton, Continuous Improvement Team Leader Alex Buddery, and Manufacturing Manager Josh Griffin, who gave a joint presentation titled “Manufacturing is in good hands,” In 2018, the focus for Cook Australia was on manufacturing, and the presenters shared some success stories and achievements.

A live cross to the US was established for Cook Group President Pete Yonkman to join us. Pete took the time to acknowledge the hard work achieved in 2018 and to thank employees for their commitment to the company and our customers and patients.

Sally Kennedy, area business manager for Australia and New Zealand, and Mike McKeone, manager of Vascular Programs for Southeast Asia-Pacific, provided an update from the Vascular division. Through a well-practiced performance featuring Leo Cevallos, manager, Regional Business; Brett Hage, manager, Strategic Accounts–Australia and New Zealand; and Ryan Herbert, manager, Regional Business, the team demonstrated how Vascular has transformed to better suit the needs of our customers.

Part two of the day started with updates from Jeana Finlinson, director of Global Learning and Talent Development, and Jean-Marc Creissel, vice president of Operations for Greater China and South-East Asia. Samih then hosted an international panel session with Barry Thomas, director Asia-Pacific and Vice President Cook Medical; Nicky James, vice president of Human Resources; and Jean-Marc to explore next year’s theme: “Focus on People.”

Our guest speaker was definitely the most popular of the day (sorry Pete!). Known to many as Australia’s favorite brother, Samuel Johnson provided honest and inspiring account of life’s ups and downs and journey with his sister Connie as she battled cancer. Samuel is well-known for his philanthropy work through the ‘Love your Sister‘ program and was named Victorian Australian of the Year in the Australia Day Honours. He is also the world-record holder for longest distance travelled on a unicycle and in 2017 collected millions of five-cent coins to form a record-breaking silver heart.

The day closed with a celebration of our service award recipients for 2018.

2018 also saw, Maryann Thorneycroft, senior documentation assistant, celebrate 35 years of service. Maryann started in production at Cook in 1983 when the company was based in Melbourne. There were about 25 people in the company at that time. In 1988, she moved with the Cook Australia to Brisbane and moved into a documentation role. On a personal note, Maryann is a die-hard Richmond supporter, would travel anywhere in Australia to see a Rod Stewart concert, and is most probably best known for her extraordinary Christmas decorations.

Looking forward, 2019 is a really exciting year as it marks 40 years since William A. Cook Australia was established… stay tuned!

The successful relocation of stents to Singapore

by Selina Salter

October marked the culmination of nearing two years of effort and planning with the successful move of the aortic stents to Singapore; making the South-Asia Delivery Centre (SADC) the new regional hub for delivery of this product line.

This was achieved through many hours of meetings, working through spreadsheets, emails, early-morning and late-night calls, and finally, many, many pallets of stents.

Coordinating the relocation required a huge team and included various departments from Supply Chain Planning, Warehouse, Regulatory, Finance, IT, and Customer Service, and a multi-country effort from Australia, Japan, Singapore, and the United States.

How the different countries played their part 

For Australia, when it came down to moving the products, the highly efficient warehouse team managed to process and pack over 1,400 stents onto 14 pallets in one day. This was achieved with no one having to work extra hours, and there was still cake left at the end of the day. This truly shows the kind of dedication the team upholds.

The extra space will be used for more bulk locations and some of the racking has been reconfigured to fit the larger stents that are still being stocked in the Australian Delivery Centre (AUDC) in one row.

The Japan Delivery Centre (JPDC) had extra work to do with applying Instructions for Use (IFUs) before shipping their excess products while maintaining their daily workload. Again, great teamwork is evident in this effort.

Singapore, as the recipient of all the stocks from AUDC and JPDC, worked impressively to receive and put away all the stock within two business days while continuing to manage their day-to-day workload.

How does the relocation benefit our customers and patients?

With the relocation of stents to Singapore, not only will space efficiencies in AUDC be increased, the inventory stock level will be largely reduced by $2 million USD. The SADC was established due to its strategic location, which is well-placed to serve as an infrastructure hub for the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region.

This means opportunities to further improve freight costs can be achieved when shipping the products within the APAC region, where shorter replenishment lead times and faster turnaround times for urgent cases are required. The relocation will also minimize waste of excess stock and relieve some of the pressure off the manufacturers.

We are very appreciative and thankful for the support and efforts of everyone involved.

Well-being in Focus – Movember

by Morgan Fuery

The “Well-being in Focus” calendar at Cook Australia aims to get more people involved in organizing our well-being activities throughout Cook. One way of doing that is for each department to choose a topic, and month, and organize an activity.

Over the month of November the Quality Assurance (QA) team presented Movember, which is a charity that raises awareness for men’s health, tackling issues such as prostate cancer, testicular cancer, mental health, and suicide prevention.

The campaign commenced with six mighty Cook employees—Richard Bennett, Jabin Kirk, Will Parke, Morgan Fuery, Robert Joyce, and Mark Carleton—who opted to put down their razors and support the “Mo Growth” for the month of November. Emily Williams joined in, too, with a fitness goal.

To help raise awareness, Cook’s Director of APAC Barry Thomas bravely offered to shave his impressive mustache if we hit $1,000 in donations, which we hit by the end of the second week. Thank you, Barry, for your mustache sacrifice.

We held a bake sale in the third week and our fellow Cook staff spent their own time and money to bake yummy treats, which raised $550 towards the team’s efforts. We can wholeheartedly say that we all appreciated the donations for the bake sale, in the form of goods, money, and time!

By the end of the fourth week the final total was $3,500, and, as announced at Company Day, Cook will match the efforts, bringing our total donation for men’s health to an impressive $7,000!

The efforts of our Movember team this year have been sensational and we thank everyone for their generous contributions.

Cook China training: stepping up communication with distributors

by Joy Zhang

From October 18-20, Cook China held its second training on “How to Communicate and Collaborate with Distributors” in Shanghai. Twenty-five employees from the Vascular, MedSurg, and Distribution Channel Management (DCM) teams participated in the three-day workshop.

A previous training on this topic was held in Beijing in November last year.

The program was designed in a systematic and interactive manner. Emphasis was placed on encouraging equal and collaborative partnerships with distributors rather than using a top-down operational style.

On the first day, the speaker shared his ideas on how to position, select, and develop potential distributor relationships.

On the second day, different management theories and data-analysis tools were used to guide the field-based employees toward developing a more clear and consistent method for co-drafting strategic business plans that will align with the vision of distributors and Cook.

On the final day of training, practical tips on how to negotiate were provided, simulated business negotiations were conducted, and real-case challenges were resolved.

“The training helped to equip the learners with a fundamental methodology based on sound data and logical reasoning which they can refer to when they are managing different types of distributor relationships in the real world,” said Songming Duan, sales manager of Reproductive Health for Great China. ​​