CRF Health looks to aerospace industry with COO appointment
To learn more about the appointment, Outsourcing-Pharma.com talked with Moss about his previous roles and how he will leverage this knowledge moving forward at CRF Health.
Outsourcing-Pharma.com: What is your background and how will this help you in your new position?
Jamie Moss: I have more than 26 years of experience in a variety of operations, manufacturing and senior executive roles across the aerospace, nuclear, engineering, professional services and energy sectors.
Most recently I was Head of Engineering Capability for QinetiQ Air Division. In this role I was responsible for 1,200 scientists, engineers and technicians over 5 facilities, covering the UK military test pilot school, UK military aerospace test and evaluation capability and maintenance of the QinetiQ fixed and rotary wing air fleet.
Prior to this I was Chief Operating Officer for Lockheed Martin Commercial Flight Training, a subsidiary and market segment within Lockheed Martin’s Training and Logistics Solutions line of business, Mission Systems and Training business area. In this capacity, I was responsible for the operational performance of Lockheed Martin’s commercial aviation simulator business covering Europe, Asia and Latin America.
Previously, I have also held diverse roles at Rolls-Royce including Managing Director of the Aero Repair & Overhaul facility and Senior Vice President of Manufacturing for the company’s Transmissions, Structures and Drives unit.
Coming froman aerospace and defense background, I’m well accustomed to working in highly regulated and fast paced markets. In an industry working with aero engines and pilot training with high expectations of customer service requirements, there are inevitably mission critical areas just like the pharma industry.
I’m used to high levels of customer focus and driving service excellence and especially in terms of looking at innovating products and services in an industry that is heavily orientated around lean processes. I’m experienced in Lean Six Sigma, and so these things are in my DNA which I do as part of my job without thinking about it.
Outsourcing-Pharma.com: What can the life sciences industry learn from the aerospace industry
Moss: There are definite parallels between the mission critical world of aero engines and the ‘get it right first time’ requirements in Life Sciences.
What’s absolutely paramount in the aerospace world is safety, safety of passengers but also product safety, ensuring that everything we do is correct and there’s no risk. Like the pharma industry, aerospace is risk adverse and similarly we work within quite tight frameworks and processes. Companies such as Rolls Royce are very mature in terms of lean operating systems. At Rolls Royce I worked on a lean journey that was a multiyear path to keep driving things such as process stability and improving process capability.
It’s about focusing on excellence and quality in the process, so that we ensure that the actual product and service is good, whereas some industries focus more on inspecting in quality. I believe it’s about building quality in and making sure that you have robust processes to underpin the quality, along with training up and heavily investing in your people to ensure that we continually learn and re-apply that learning back into everything that we do.
In my role I’m challenging some of the paradigms that are embedded in the company, including our approaches, which is already unlocking different perspectives and different views. We have got a huge amount of bench strength in terms of pharma and people that are skilled and experienced in the pharma industry and I believe that I complement the team by bringing a different dynamic both to the team and the organization.
Outsourcing-Pharma.com: What do you hope to achieve at the company?
Moss: I’ve had the pleasure and privilege of working with large blue chips companies such as Rolls Royce and Lockheed Martin. I like to associate myself with excellence and leaders of the industry and CRF Health is clearly in that bracket. My ambition is to take some of the really great things that the business has done and build on it in order to accelerate growth. I see that my role and goals are to keep driving service excellence for our customers.
We’ve got some really interesting things in terms of product service innovation and my role will be key in bringing that on-stream to allow our customers to benefit from that innovation and ultimately to continue to grow the company. The business has already grown dramatically and with my experience and skills I can help to deliver further significant growth.
Outsourcing-Pharma.com: Based on the current state of the industry, what do you expect from the next five years?
Moss: Pharmaceutical outsourcing will continue to evolve, like it has in many other industries, and partnerships will become critical in driving success.
However, a couple of areas stand out for me. I believe it is often referred to as the 4th Industrial Revolution and encompasses internet and connectivity. I can see this continuing to develop and obviously CRF Health has recognized this with the acquisition of Entra Health and I believe we will see this proliferate.
Another area is the harnessing of big data and analytics and using these to tackle diseases but complementary to that I see big data coupled with internet and connectivity moving more into the predictive kind of environment where we can tackle the likes of wellness and healthcare. So it’s not just about curing the diseases, it about improving healthcare and wellbeing as well and this is where I see that internet and connectivity along with big data can be harnessed in both those streams.
