# Growing volumes: hire or optimize?

When production accelerates, the quality-control lab's workload climbs — often **faster than the volumes themselves**. The natural reflex: hire. But before adding headcount, one question pays off more: where does control genuinely add value? Field experience at a French pharmaceutical contract manufacturer (CDMO).

+76%

more verification hours in a year, when batches grew "only" +34%. The control workload doesn't track volumes: it outpaces them.

Observed at a French pharmaceutical contract manufacturer (CDMO), 2023 → 2024.

Hiring to keep up with the workload means reproducing the existing setup at a larger scale — including the controls that add no value. Managing the workload means first **measuring** it, **segmenting it by risk**, then deciding where to optimize and where to reinforce. Hiring then becomes a choice, not a headlong rush.

The control workload grows faster than volumes.

New, more complex products, verifications that pile up, documentation reviews that stretch out: the lab's workload doesn't follow a simple rule of three. It runs away. Hiring keeps things afloat for a while, but it doesn't address the cause — and it shifts the bottleneck toward training, supervision and batch release.

## Measure, segment, decide.

Before adding capacity, inform the decision with facts.

01

### Measure the real workload

Reconstruct the workload per item and per test from control frequencies and standards — and compare workload against available capacity.

02

### Segment by risk

Cross-reference supplier, item and test risk to separate what must stay in-house from what can be streamlined or delegated.

03

### Decide: optimize, then size

First recover capacity through controlled-risk streamlining — then size headcount against the residual workload that's genuinely needed.

[The risk-analysis method in detail →](/en/blog/reduce-qc-controls-risk-analysis/)

## Capacity, before hiring.

Analyzing the workload by risk reveals where to act, and in what order.

8%

of workload recoverable right away (direct delegation).

56%

accessible via supplier qualification: the medium-term plan.

36%

incompressible: that's where headcount should go.

The most telling signal remains the explosion in **verification** hours (+76%): often the symptom of overly heavy review rules. Streamlining the review to the right level of risk frees up as much capacity as a hire — without the cost or the delay.

## Tackle the workload at the root.

[Quality control

### Streamline QC controls

The risk-analysis method: 3 indices and a decision grid.

Read the article →](/en/blog/reduce-qc-controls-risk-analysis/) [Suppliers

### Delegate to the supplier (CoA)

The biggest opportunity: qualify to delegate without losing oversight.

Read the article →](/en/blog/delegate-controls-supplier-coa/) [Consulting

### Operational performance

Assess the workload and free up capacity, from €5k.

See the approach →](/en/consulting/operational-performance/)

## Workload, capacity and growth.

Why does the QC workload rise faster than volumes? +

Because new, more complex items, longer methods and heavier documentation reviews add to the mere increase in the number of batches. In our field experience, +34% batches translated into +56% hours — and +76% on verification alone.

Should you hire or optimize first? +

Optimize first, size second. Recovering the capacity lost in low-value controls (through risk analysis) avoids hiring just to reproduce inefficiency. Hiring then focuses on the workload that's genuinely incompressible.

How do you measure the workload-to-capacity fit? +

By reconstructing the workload per item and per test (control frequency × time standard), then comparing it against available capacity. Beware of theoretical standards, often far from the real workload: the assessment must make them objective.

Is streamlining controls risky in a regulated environment? +

No, as long as the streamlining rests on a documented risk analysis and high-stakes controls are kept in place. It's actually the expected logic: proportion the control effort to the real risk, and document it.

## Make growth a choice, not a constraint.

Let's quantify your lab's workload and the recoverable capacity before any hiring.