The Supply Chain Owner’s Guide to Planning

In following the maturation of the temperature controlled logistics industry, the planning stages are vital to the continual enhancement and streamlining of the cold chain. There are multiple key areas within the supply chain that should be evaluated to assess whether improvements trim the fat and economical inefficiencies from the supply chain. 

To add to the discussion on continuous improvement within temperature controlled logistics, Pharma Logistics IQ examines the notion of planning with a few key experts, more specifically in the areas of stability budgets, supply chain integration, temperature control with high value products, ambient ranges and oncoming trends to account for.

Speaker Panel

NOTE: The opinions expressed should not be assumed to represent those of the company an expert is associated with.

Stephen Mitchell, 
E2E LP Quality Lead, GlaxoSmithKline

Val Petursson,
Senior Director,  Logistics Europe & PTC/PP, Teva

Rubén Velázquez Treviño,
Change Manager - Transport Services, Bayer

Brice Bellin,
Healthcare Director Europe,Bollore Logistics

How can stability budgets be used to assist with cost saving in the implementation of temperature controlled management?

Ruben: “For one of the projects we went back to our temperature stability budgets and stability studies to see how much pressure and stress our products could withstand and then started to develop a transportation strategy based upon that. To revisit the original stability studies may give you more flexibility when planning difficult or challenging steps in your lane.

“The unloading/loading maneuvers, and handling at the distribution center or warehouse. These are key processes that can benefit from out of stability time that otherwise would be either too expensive or too complicated to manage.”

Val: “I am not aware of companies doing this to be honest. We do not, but I’m pretty sure it could and should be applied. It acknowledges the responsibilities that companies have and also puts a focus on the costs involved. Not so many years ago, these freight costs were not recognised necessarily within the industry, but now it is not a matter of choice anymore . 

“Also, it can be productive to organise spend on temperature control as part of a capex budget. So any improvements made to meet GDP standards arent deemed as part of the operational budget but in fact the capex budget. “

Stephen: “The only point I would make on this is that the stability budget should be built into the last mile. It is not something that people should be using to plan for their core distribution process.centre. The principle is that you can’t budget to include boost your stability budget in a normal supply chain process, I think that is quite important. At the end of the day, you do not know what your patient is going to do with the product once they have received it. The stability budget really is intended [for] that end of the supply chain.”

Do you think temperature management for CRT/ambient products still stands as a large challenge within the industry. What are the best ways for firms to compliantly lower their outgoings?

 Brice: “It still remains a very big challenge especially for freight forwarder. Many stakeholders are involved in transportation processes and products are passedthrough many different hands making a full control of these steps very complicated. This may set the integrity of products into risk. Therefore, a dedicated mindset for handling of Pharma shipments is mandatory.Assurance through risk assessments, transport plans and partnerships with qualified and audited stakeholders such as carrier, subcontractor, ground handling agents, warehouse companies and many others is mandatory for the most possible risk  inimization. A high technical standardized Track & Trace system supports additionally and allows the immediate impact in case of deviations. Last but not least, the transport of ambient products still remaining the biggest challenge due to the fact that less transport solutions are available and implementation of them are cost intensive.

“A use of so called passive packaging solutions may be a key solution for many companies facing problems with ambient products and making transportation at the end cost effective compared to active solutions.” 

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