If the pandemic of Covid19 has taught us anything as a logistics industry is that the Pharmaceutical supply chain is critical to fuelling the health of the world.

From distribution from pop up vaccine manufacturing plants in Rural Wales (credit BBC) into the global supply chain, to just in time, hereafter JIT, delivery of millions of critical drugs and deep cold chain over huge distances of life saving Covid19 vaccinations all over the world.

In these scenarios IT cannot be more important, it is almost as important as the medicine itself; as we move to a more transparent society with people expecting the real time tracking of goods, commodities, groceries and letters to their door – why should pharmaceuticals be any different?

In this post we will look at some scenarios, from worldwide shipping of vaccines through to home delivery of prescriptions in the UK.

Firstly mass shipments of medicines such as the Covid19 vaccine can be considered as valuable as currency, they need to be kept in monitored, tailored conditions to capture GPS location, temperature variance, movement velocity, tamper proof and being able to find and move a specific batch at any time.

Once solution deployed by FedEx to leverage this technology during the pandemic is called SenseAware ID (credit FedEx) that allows real time tracking of any package, capturing the lat and long details of the package as well as capturing the KPI’s of the package and reporting on any variances.

That data can then be used in artificial intelligence, hereafter AI and machine learning, hereafter ML to educate on trends and the intelligence them goes on to provide customer insight, availability, transparency and integrity of the Pharma product through its supply chain.

The supply chain does not stop there, once vaccines and medicines have been shipped globally, they often land in huge warehouses that are adapted for deep cold, cold and ambient supply chain, these then have to be picked and packed often with a mixed order estate, so how do these companies continue to provide this integrity – you guess it through innovative IT solutions.

Integrity is key, but at the same time you must have the agility as a logistics company to be able to be able to handle mixed estates of deep cold, cold and ambient shipments often on one vehicle or trailer. This has to be done in an operational manner that applies compliance, structure and benefit to the operations. The more efficient the operation the more packs can be delivered JIT. This drives customer (Pharmacy, Prescription requestor, doctor’s surgery, supermarket) centricity, selection and availability.

The realisation of WHERE a product is, alongside HOW it got there and WHEN it will finally get there are key drivers to business goals and customer satisfaction, if you can delivery this with a seamless delivery experience then your organisation will succeed in this space

Technology has to be at the heart, with things such as SenseAware, Apple Air Tags being made commercially available to all consumers, however larger cold chain and deep cold chain solutions are also deployed to provide real time data and powerful KPI’s to control towers within companies estates.

What is also clear is that this market is lucrative, with some estimates making the industry worth over 35billion dollars per year with medicines often being of high value and companies willing to pay double and triple digit margins on shipping, storing and distributing this product, if you can manage it then you can lock in these benefits and drive cost performance, profit and longevity to your organisation.

So how can Logistics planner (LP), help with this journey, it’s capabilities allow for mixed freight vehicles in the supply chain, the home delivery and the retail deliver space to be planned alongside existing TMS, transport management systems, WMS, warehouse management systems and complex ordering systems. Giving each freight a profile of cold chain, deep cold chain or ambient and also taking into consideration of the cube of the product to be able to plan loads on time and in the right place. The best in class, market leading algorithm provides optimal solutions for the customer to enhance their supply chain, work with existing solutions and interfaces to provide.

What are the next steps? The future for pharma is clear, it forms part of our modern lifestyle, it forms part of our daily requirement for medicine around the world. As logistics moves to a new age of ensuring that movement can be made as cost efficient as possible and a move to electric vehicles to reduce carbon and emissions into our environment, it will be tools not fuels that will enhance this.

Dassault can help, they can provide you with agnostic solutions to help manage electric fleets, drive down carbon emission and reduce miles and money with on road activities, allowing customer value, selection and centricity. Leveraging these solutions within your organisation can deliver business goals and allow KPI’s to be achieved.

Andy Bennett – for the Delmia Quintiq Community November 2022