Total Logistics Reviews Key Issues Facing Life Science Sector
03/06/2009
Total Logistics has been delivering supply chain improvements to the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry for over ten years. Following recent market research into current trends, Total Logistics has identified some key supply chain issues facing Life Science companies today, namely:
- Pressure on national healthcare budgets leads to a greater focus on costs
- Increased need for temperature control and tracking of products demands more complex and higher risk supply chains
- Consolidation and mergers creates complexity but offers significant scope for synergy savings within the supply chain and sales force
- Alternative routes to market require specialised supply chains:
- Home delivery of drugs and consumables
- Direct to Pharmacy and Direct to Hospital initiatives
- Role of supermarkets and private hospitals in supply chain
- Multi market warehousing
- Parallel market arbitrage
- Changes in production mix require reconfiguration of plant layouts and associated flow of materials within the plants
Kenneth Porter, Partner at Total Logistics, said: “The supply chain is sometimes neglected within Life Science companies as the cost as a percentage of sales is low compared to other industries. There is now a strong focus at Board level to address this as cost pressures and complexity now have a higher profile.”
He continued: “The recent spate of mergers has created many opportunities for companies to re-assess their supply chain networks and learn lessons from other industries on how to streamline their distribution processes.”
Total Logistics has addressed these issues for a range of Life Science clients and has achieved significant savings. Some examples are shown below.
- GlaxoSmithKline - Post merger logistics network evaluation
- Pfizer - Logistics benchmarking resulting in 20% reduction in costs
- Baxter - Design & implementation of new export DC
- Vaccine Producer - Redesign of production layout to handle new processes for a top ten vaccine producer (confidential project)
- Unicare - Warehouse upgrade/improvement programme
- Nutricia - Major improvements in DC productivity
To find out more about how Total Logistics can help Life Science companies, please call +44 (0) 118 977 3027.
Total Logistics provides practical strategic supply chain consultancy across all industry sectors throughout Europe and the rest of the world. For more information contact us on +44 (0)118 977 3027, or send an e-mail to info@total-logistics.eu.com.
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