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July 28, 2025
BPF training, although mandatory, and although at the heart of the pharmaceutical industry, remains completely archaic in its form and completely inefficient basically, in most pharmaceutical laboratories.
The current practice is to train the entire site with unique messages, the same for all employees, and most of the time, this training is done in the classroom. I even heard operational people talk about Grand-Messe BPF, or sometimes it's done in e-learning, a boring 3-hour push-button power point. And every time we talk about BPF training on a site, here are some qualifiers that come up, we say that “it's heavy to manage...”, “We do it because we have to do it...”, people spend 3 hours to remember nothing. But deep down, behind these comments, there are real pains, and real business risks... The first business risk is obvious, it is that of “non-compliance”.
Do you really believe that a single message will have a strong impact on the entire population, while the reality of employees is very different, between a production operator and a liberating pharmacist, or between a warehouse worker, and an executive in the QC lab... It is neurologically impossible for a single message to impact 100% of a population. Therefore, a message that is poorly sent, not targeted enough, that does not speak enough to its recipient will be poorly received, misinterpreted, and will not make an impression. So how do you want an operator, warehouse worker, or lab technician to really understand The impacts of GMP on the ground ? How do you want an executive to understand their responsibility as a manager under GMP, if the messages are not directed in this direction? In fact, misdirected messages, if misunderstood, will lead to GMP discrepancies, or even more serious, violations.
The second problem, following on from the first, is the lack of BPF culture and all of its consequences. As soon as the message is massively misunderstood, each collaborator will develop her own BPF culture, his own vision, he gets his own idea of the requirements. The consequences are disastrous for the teams, a difference in interpretation of a requirement can lead to tensions between the teams, which is completely unacceptable. counterproductive.
This therefore poses problems on a daily basis, but also for the integration of newcomers, who may find themselves on the same site, with different interpretations of the BPF. Nothing better than to engage them in the path of BPF violation out of ignorance... Having an ineffective BPF training might not be a problem after all, it might not be so bad if it didn't cost anything.
However, here, it is very different and this is the third problem. The direct cost of BPF training is generally 2 to 3 hours per employee per year, to which must be added the administration of this training, of the order of 20% of a person. But that's only the visible part!
The consequences of inadequate, ineffective GMP training are also partly caused by deviations caused by training defects, equipment maintenance faults, documentary defects, or others. But also a possible risk linked to the possible consequences ofInspections a bit painful, calling for a remediation plan for example.Not to mention the costs of possible batch recalls, for the risk of uncontrolled cross-contamination. And so, in fact, regardless of the cost, significant or not, non-compliance with GMPs is really the most unacceptable risk you face.
The squaring of the circle, when it comes to BPF training, is that it must be effective, to have a lasting impact the quality culture of the site. She must send clear messages, understood by everyone for her workplace, in order to increase the GMP culture and the level of compliance, and It must be inexpensive, both in its execution, and thanks to the errors avoided.
In summary, a good BPF training is a training that has a very strong impact, at a lower cost. Such training allows each person to really understand the spirit of the law, and how they can respect this law at their workplace and thus avoid committing out of ignorance. costly mistakes. It makes it possible to create a harmonized GMP culture on the site, and facilitates thus problem solving and the integration of newcomers. Finally, it allows it to be executed at a lower administrative cost. This training now exists, and I am going to describe it to you.
Hello, my name is Olivier DEPARDIEU, and I am the founder of Sinfony.
Sinfony improves business performance by deleting the 50-page Word procedures that no one reads and by improving Power Point training that no one understands. Thanks, among other things, to the use of video, but ATTENTION not just any video. We have imported into the industry the same message transmission methods that are used in web marketing.
Personally, I have nearly 20 years of experience in organizational consulting in the pharmaceutical industry, I have done numerous missions to improve documentation, training, batch files, but also production performance, in QC, QA reorganizations, improvement of the release process... I have worked in more than 300 consulting missions, and I have worked on more than 100 production sites different over the course of my career. I have been a speaker several times on the subject of documentation and training in the pharmaceutical industry, in particular at The ISPE in Las Vegas and in The A3P in Biarritz. Click here to access the ISPE website and hither for that of the A3P.
The idea of this BPF training that you will discover comes from a discussion with a lab, and from tests we did a few years ago. We tried to apply the principles of web marketing to a few GMP chapters in the lab in question. The rendering could be improved a lot, but the feedback on the ground was already good. Then the file was put to sleep, both on the client's side and on our side until we realized that one of the videos of Sinfony The most viewed on YouTube were precisely about BPF training.
So, with my associates, we decided to take up the file again, and to say to each other “This time, we're doing it for good...! ”. We gave a conference at A3P in Belgium that had an impact. extremely favorable. But how can you be sure that you are going in the right direction on the merits? How can you be sure to target a GMP interpretation that is accurate? And how can we be sure that what we are going to produce corresponds to the Need land labs?
We found the answer by questioning our prospects and customers and offered them a mastermind whose objective was to design this BPF training. The conditions were simple: the lab participates in the mastermind for up to 4 days home to discuss the substance, and in exchange, it benefits from the final rendering of the training at an extremely competitive price, that is to say, all the videos as well as access to all the source files used for the videos. He can thus, if he wishes, make a customized version of it. 4 laboratories of international scope have agreed to participate.
This training really seeks to be effective and at a lower cost, it is built on the principles of micro-learning, that is to say, the modules are very short, they should be able to be consulted in a variety of circumstances, including by people with very little time. It is in fact made up of videos, the longest of which is 7 minutes long. The videos are subtitled so they can be seen even in noisy environments. Each video is accompanied by a specific quiz, and a concrete exercise, that the person must do in the field. The videos are made to be viewed on a smartphone or in theaters.
The basic principle of this training is to have one video per chapter and per profile. We have identified 4 profiles, spread over 4 levels, whose correspondence you can find in your organization. We went by level to ensure the flexibility that each lab needs in terms of its internal organization.
The 4 levels are:
Level 4: Management Committee Members and N-1.
Level 3: First Level Supervisors.
Level 2: Field staff in direct contact with the product.
Level 1: All others including visitors.
We produced 28 videos for the 9 chapters in part 1. Some videos used for several profiles, we also produced 3 annual refresh videos. The refresh videos cover a theme on a per video basis and recall what each of the 9 chapters in part 1 of BPF on this theme. Each video was the subject of a particular interpretation of each chapter in terms of the targeted profile.
We really got into the skin of our target, who is called an avatar, to look for the psychological levers that will make them be impacted by the message. Each video was then built according to the message structures that work in advertising and web marketing.
This construction includes:
The shooting was done in our premises with a green screen shooting technology, without editing, which allows the videos to be shot and flipped as many times as you want, at a very low cost. This made it possible to make several versions of the videos to arrive at a product that fully satisfied the laboratories participating in the mastermind.
In the general opinion of the 4 laboratories present and the few others with whom we tested the product, the contents are so well done and precise, that they are sufficient and do not ultimately need to be customized by the lab. Click hereI and test for free our BPF training !
The 4 mastermind participants will use the content directly for their site. On the other hand, dissemination capacities vary greatly from one lab to another. Some have an LMS, others will have one, and others are not equipped, and we had to deal with this point for the provision of content. Also on the Sinfony side, we thought of offering you all possible scenarios: We are able to provide you with the training in our own LMS with a specific instance, which is reserved for you. In fact, instead of buying the training, you are buying the use of the training, with the 4 courses, with the guarantee that it will always be up to date, because we are committed, with a change control process, to make the content evolve so that it is always up to date.
You also have the guarantee of traceability of all your training data, to know exactly who has been trained in which module. It's our STANDARD HOSTED option. If you need specific courses that are combinations between the contents of the 4 basic courses, it is also possible. We set this up with you in your instance of our LMS. And off we go! You benefit from the same guarantees of updating and traceability as the STANDARD option, but with customized paths. We call this “CUSTOMISED HOSTED” solution, but you might want to go further, and want to integrate the courses into your own LMS, and complete them with content that is unique to you, it is also possible in two ways.