Axantia lifts OEE from 18.5% to 41.9% in 11 months without new machines

The challenge

Axantia is a holding company based in Dubai with a strong presence in health and pharmaceuticals. Its portfolio of 200 products reaches more than 19 countries across the Middle East and Africa. The group runs three manufacturing plants in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, each specialized in specific production lines, to develop, manufacture and distribute generic medicines and other formulations. Its subsidiary Pharma International Company (PIC) runs the operation in Jordan, licensed to produce cephalosporin and non-cephalosporin products.

At PIC, manual processes dominated the shop floor. Teams collected, managed and stored data in spreadsheets, a method prone to errors, and the Process Improvement and Production Planning teams worked with information they could not rely on. “At the time, data took a long time to reach management and was often inaccurate, leading to delayed strategic decisions,” says Alaa AbuAlsabe, Senior Process Improvement Manager at Axantia.

Without machine availability data, effective planning was nearly impossible and the root causes of losses stayed hidden. Gemba walks lacked the accurate data needed to agree on a course of action. With an operational expansion ahead, the plant needed a reliable view of its own performance.

The solution

PIC started with the OEE foundation. Sensors and IoT devices on the machines feed approved and rejected quantities, and operators log events on approximately 58 tablets. The downtime Pareto, worked through the Six Big Losses framework and a Top 5 view, shows which events consume productive time and separates scheduled from unscheduled downtime. MTTR, MTBF and other maintenance indicators sit on the same OEE dashboard, and Equipment Dashboard screens across the shop floor show OEE, maintenance and setup in real time.

On a regulated shop floor, records have to be trustworthy. QR code login gives each user permissions according to their responsibility and area, and maintenance, quality and other downtime events go through QR code validation. Audit trail reports show who recorded and changed what.

The Flow pillar runs on Flow View. Every order on the shop floor is followed in real time, with the status of each machine by production phase, the queue and the scheduled batches in one integrated view. The team tracks lead time, cycle time, route deviations and holding time, adds comments to order cards, and follows temperature and humidity along the route.

Two integrations keep the data current without manual work: SAP sends production orders (creation, changes and deletions), and the BMS supplies machine temperature and humidity against configured minimum and maximum limits.

Adoption spread beyond production. “Thanks to the intuitive interface and customizable options, Cogtive was quickly adopted by other departments, fostering a culture of data sharing and analysis,” says Mais Zetawi, Process Improvement and Documentation Supervisor at Axantia (PIC).

The results

In 11 months, OEE rose from 18.5% in January 2024 to 41.9% in November 2024, an increase of 126%.

The teams combined Cogtive’s historical data and Pareto charts with Lean Six Sigma tools to remove the main losses in Tableting and Blistering. Output grew on the existing machines, without buying new equipment:

• Tableting: from 32.3 million units in January 2024 to 57.2 million in November 2024 (+77%)
• Blistering: from 3.3 million units in January 2024 to 5.6 million in November 2024, driven by higher machine availability

Gemba walks became more efficient and now run on shared, reliable data, while management follows the plant in real time from the control room. With OEE and flow indicators visible to every area, teams set clear goals and benchmarks and stay aligned with minimal friction.