Gerresheimer Pisa belongs to the Gerrescheimer German group. In 2005 the group turnover was of 560 million Euros. The group is a world leader in the production of glass pack for the pharmaceutical and cosmetic sector; it employs over 5,000 people and is internationally present in the USA, Mexico and Europe, with 17 companies as a whole. Five of them manufacture vials and bottles from tubes for the pharmaceutical and cosmetic sectors, while the remaining ones are focused on mold-generated bottles.
In 2004 the Gerrescheimer group was taken over by Black Stone, an American investment fund. 
Gerresheimer Pisa, with head office in Pisa, has 126 employers. In 2005 its turnover was of almost 30 million Euros. The company manufactures borosilicate glass tube (for glass cruets, syringes etc.) The reference market is a highly specific niche within the ‘glass’ sector. As a matter of fact, there are only two big competitors worldwide, one in Europe and one in Japan.
At present the European market is undepressed, while a sizeable development is envisaged in the Far East area, particularly in India and China, where the company has been present for 3 years already. The 95% of the Italian company production is covered by the pharmaceutical sector. In the head office in Pisa are three furnaces and seven production lines, where glass tubes with diameter from 6,85 mm. are produced.

Service quality as competitive lever
The reference supply chain for Kimble Italiana involves the producers of phials and bottles and, as the last step, the pharmaceutical companies. Michele Schinella, Sales Director of Gerresheimer Pisa, starts by saying: ‘an important cost for the whole chain is that of stockholding time. Considering the whole supply chain, it amounts to approximately 225 days’. These periods, generating evident management costs, are basically caused by inadequate exchange of information among actors of the same production chain. With such a background, the company decided to start a process of data processing integration to be promoted towards the reference chain. Mr. Schinella explains: ‘we wanted to find a tool allowing to generate wide information transparency among the main characters of our business’.
The need to improve the service level along the chain comes from the product maturation. ‘We do not expect great technological developments in borosilicate glass manufacturing. Competition thus totally lays in the quality of the service offered’ the company Sales Director tells.
The firm chose to intervene strategically by trying to accelerate and ease not only the relationship towards the final customers, but by acting on the whole chain, thus generating benefits to the pharmaceutical companies, the last step in the production chain.