Looking Into a Company: Trek to Johnson and Johnson

14 November 2014

On 29 October we were lucky enough to have a trek to the Kirkton campus of Johnson and Johnson. When I think of Johnson and Johnson, I think of Q-tips, Band-Aids, and baby shampoo, but we got a look into some of the other products Johnson and Johnson makes.

The Kirkton campus is where J&J produces all of their suture kits. The needles and “thread” come from abroad and are attached and sterilized here in Scotland. That sounds pretty uncomplicated, right?

Think again! We got to suit up and scrub down to enjoy an in-depth look at how the factory is able to create these kits. We went into several rooms that were a mix of human labour and automation. We visited one woman who was making sutures and used a machine to press the needle the suture material together and then wound them into a simple packaging. It was mental to see how many different types of sutures they make!

In another part of the factory we saw men and women making “Barbie-sized” suture kits. The needles looked like they were made for dolls, but we learned they were used in eye surgery. These needles were so tiny they could not be used making a press and instead were attached by hand with resin that was later baked.

The automation was pretty amazing as well. They mainly used automation for the packaging aspect. The machines were able to place the correct sutures with the correct labels into a special kind of packaging that allowed for the sterilization process to occur afterwards.

Most of the sutures were pumped with a gas that sterilized them and then the gas was sucked out. The process took 13 hours and several thousand sutures could be sterilized at once.

The factory tour of Ethicon was just amazing! It was great to see how a global billion-dollar co-operation like J&J manages sustain over time by simply following their company credo, which puts people before profits. J&J is an extraordinary company with a remarkable history which manages to endure successfully and which gives so much back to society. J&J’s Ethicon has truly managed to establish themselves as an indispensable employer in the region.

The other product they make at Kirkton is bone wax. In surgery they must stop bones from bleeding and use a special wax substance to do so. This could not be sterilized by gas and instead they use a radiation treatment to sterilize the bone wax. We were not lucky (or unlucky?) enough to see that process, but they do that at the factory as well.

After this exciting tour we had a chance to talk about J&J with the staff and ask some questions. The biggest thing I got out of the presentation was how important the J&J credo is to all of the different business units. It really unites the company under one idea and goal. It was wonderful getting to see another aspect of J&J away from their commercial products.

Kelly Crawford, MSc International Business and Emerging Markets