Supply Chain World - Volume 7, Issue 3 - 7

SHIPMENTS

BY JEFF NEWMAN

Staying Consistent
Here is what is next when it comes to securing global pharmaceutical shipments.
The demand for pharmaceuticals is booming in the United States, driven
by a rapidly aging population and new enrollees under the Affordable
Care Act. As the need for personalized medicine intensifies, manufacturers must rethink their approach to supply chain management.
By 2023, the Drug Supply Chain Security Act will require that the industry
implement end-to-end traceability. The
purpose is to prevent quality issues and
recalls by leveraging data that has been
proactively organized throughout a product's journey, rather than engaging in a
lengthy and often costly effort to model
the information backward in order to
determine the root cause of failure.
This is easier said than done. While
automation has allowed manufacturers
to move away from batch technology to
small unit production, they struggle with
ensuring product consistency as units get
broken down and handed off. Human intervention is costly and not easily scaled
for global operations. For manufacturers
to reap ROI on continuous models, they
must implement tracking features that
enable rapid-response decision-making.
The first step to securing the global
supply chain is tackling its weakest
link - human error during the handoff
process. Since many medicines have
only a 48- to 72-hour window to get from
one controlled environment to another,
it's critical to ensure shipment integrity
- from the package to pill level. The need
for oversight and tightly-controlled
environmental conditions will increase
over the next decade as large molecule
treatments become significantly more
popular than small-molecule treat-

ments. These medications are typically
fragile, have a short shelf life and often
require specialized tracking.
The next step to ensure transparency and traceability is to tag shipments
from point of pack to a customer's
door. Via smart tags and Bluetooth
sensors, distributors can coordinate
millions of items across multiple storage sites - easily expediting shipments
or adjusting logistics to avoid theft,
inadequate supply and tainted deliveries. Smart tags eliminate the need for
line-of-sight identification and allow
you to identify entire truckloads of
product at a time.

They are extremely difficult to
counterfeit and can be easily integrated
with your data management software
of choice. You can also cut warehouse
rental and maintenance costs by
staging products at on-demand virtual
cold storage units, airports and other
shipping facilities to enable expedited
delivery around-the-clock.
To execute time-critical processes and decision-making, tagging and
sensor tech must be integrated onto a
secure command platform. For example,
rapid alerts might trigger automated
commands to dynamically reroute and
repartition time-sensitive products.
Due to a sudden policy change, medication may be unapproved overnight and
left sitting on a tarmac too long to be
shipped to its destination within a safe
window of use. Within hours it may be
repackaged for sale for local consumers.
Over time, granular visibility across
multi-modal shipping routes will enable
you to proactively manage factors that
may be affecting your bottom line on a
seasonal basis. With automated reports
and real-time alerts, operators will have
greater bandwidth to focus on optimizing environmental conditions, rather
than panicking about them.

Many medicines have a brief
window to go between controlled
environments, making it critical
to ensure shipment integrity.

VOLUME 7, ISSUE 3 Supply Chain World

Supply Chain World - Volume 7, Issue 3

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Supply Chain World - Volume 7, Issue 3