The global pharmaceutical and healthcare industry has
experienced a number of severe shocks to the system in
recent decades. What was once a sector where profits flowed
from ‘blockbuster’ drugs and a customer base willing to
pay premium prices has transformed into a quite different
world as a consequence of competition from generics along
with reduced budgets available to healthcare providers.
Compounding these problems are increasing regulatory
constraints and more challenging logistics requirements as
bio-pharmaceuticals and related products increase the need
for stricter control of temperature and shelf-life as they move
through the supply chain.
As a result there is now a significantly greater focus across
the sector on supply chain management. Previously, when
margins were higher and logistics costs were a relatively
small proportion of total costs, supply chain issues tended
to take a back seat. Now things have changed. Recent
research by UPS® has highlighted that many companies are
finding it difficult to develop supply chain capabilities that
can simultaneously take out costs whilst ensuring regulatory
compliance, track and trace, product security and stricter
temperature and shelf-life control.
Because of these pressures, a new approach to the design
and management of supply/demand networks in the industry
becomes imperative. In today’s marketplace, there is a need
for supply chains that are cost-effective, efficient and agile.
Companies operating in every industrial sector and in
every market around the world have been confronted in
recent years with significant challenges. These challenges
have come from numerous sources – economic recession,
demographic changes, geo-political upheavals to name but
a few. The healthcare and pharmaceutical industry has been
no exception and has been impacted by major changes in the
competitive and market environment.
Reliability, quality and a competitive price are table stakes in
the business of maintaining and repairing industrial facilities
and equipment, commonly known as Maintenance, Repair
and Operations (MRO). Given the nature of MRO, urgency can
often catapult to the top of the list of requirements. Sellers
who cannot consistently come through will almost certainly
be dropped from future consideration.
ER Publication,
IJETR, IJMCTR,
Journals,
International Journals,
High Impact Journals,
Monthly Journal,
Good quality Journals,
Research,
Research Papers,
Research Article,
Free Journals, Open access Journals,
erpublication.org,
Engineering Journal,
Science Journals,
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: A Focus on the Consumer Products Industry 2...Lora Cecere
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter will be a series of reports published intermittently throughout the year by Supply Chain Insights LLC. Within the world of Supply Chain Management (SCM), each industry is unique. To help companies understand differences, each report is a deep dive on a different industry.
While we find it useful to understand the evolution of supply chain excellence by comparing industries, we feel that the true stories of supply chain excellence can only be really understood by comparing what happened within a period by peer group. The goal of this series is to share these insights. These reports are intended for you to read, share and use to improve your supply chain decisions.
The average Consumer Products (CP) company is stronger in the execution of supply chain management practices than their retail or pharmaceutical counterparts, but as companies will see in later reports, CP progress has not been equal to that of High-tech and Electronics manufacturers.
CP companies (including both consumer packaged goods (CPG) and food & beverage companies) tend to be marketing-driven. They are struggling to understand the differences between new market-driven, and their well-oiled marketing-driven, supply chains. With a strong legacy in building persuasive marketing programs, the companies have leveraged a global “one-size-fits-all” push-based supply chain strategy. These traditional supply chain management (SCM) definitions have produced supply chains that respond, but don’t sense. They are efficient, but not adaptive. They tend to be long (greater than twenty weeks) with waste pockets between nodes.
The landscape of the industry has been greatly affected by mergers and acquisitions. In the past decade, 57 companies were absorbed into ten. The industry is still digesting this change. While most companies have 150 unique systems, the manufacturers in this industry will often have five times the industry average. Getting to the right data to improve decision making continues to be a challenge.
What Drives Inventory Effectiveness in a Market-Driven World? Lora Cecere
Survey Details: The research for this report was conducted from February 12 - October 8, 2015. Surveys were conducted among Manufacturers, Retailers, and Wholesalers/Distributors/Co-operatives with $250M+ in revenue and who use (and are familiar with) inventory optimization software (n=64). Respondents were evenly split between those using basic (ERP or ERP+APS) and advanced (software in addition to ERP/APS) software. All surveys were conducted by Supply Chain Insights.
Objective: To understand the impact of inventory optimization software on supply chain excellence. NOTE: inventory optimization software was defined as "any form of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), APS (Advanced Planned Software), or sophisticated inventory planning tools."
Highlight: Companies who use advanced software are more likely to be satisfied with their software, to be effective at making inventory decisions and to drive a return on investment for their software.
A Positive Outlook: Fourth Annual State of the Retail Supply Chain ReportJDA Software
What's top of mind for retail executives? Enhancing fulfillment capabilities. Nearly 90 percent of retailers say that direct-to-consumer fulfillment issues will command a greater level of attention from their supply chain management teams to support online and mobile sales. This according to The Fourth Annual The State of the Retail Supply Chain Study, a JDA sponsored study conducted by Auburn University and the Retail Industry Leaders Association.
For more information about the report and how you can achieve Retail. In Sync. with JDA, visit:
http://now.jda.com/RILA-AuburnStudy-2014.html
Reliability, quality and a competitive price are table stakes in
the business of maintaining and repairing industrial facilities
and equipment, commonly known as Maintenance, Repair
and Operations (MRO). Given the nature of MRO, urgency can
often catapult to the top of the list of requirements. Sellers
who cannot consistently come through will almost certainly
be dropped from future consideration.
ER Publication,
IJETR, IJMCTR,
Journals,
International Journals,
High Impact Journals,
Monthly Journal,
Good quality Journals,
Research,
Research Papers,
Research Article,
Free Journals, Open access Journals,
erpublication.org,
Engineering Journal,
Science Journals,
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: A Focus on the Consumer Products Industry 2...Lora Cecere
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter will be a series of reports published intermittently throughout the year by Supply Chain Insights LLC. Within the world of Supply Chain Management (SCM), each industry is unique. To help companies understand differences, each report is a deep dive on a different industry.
While we find it useful to understand the evolution of supply chain excellence by comparing industries, we feel that the true stories of supply chain excellence can only be really understood by comparing what happened within a period by peer group. The goal of this series is to share these insights. These reports are intended for you to read, share and use to improve your supply chain decisions.
The average Consumer Products (CP) company is stronger in the execution of supply chain management practices than their retail or pharmaceutical counterparts, but as companies will see in later reports, CP progress has not been equal to that of High-tech and Electronics manufacturers.
CP companies (including both consumer packaged goods (CPG) and food & beverage companies) tend to be marketing-driven. They are struggling to understand the differences between new market-driven, and their well-oiled marketing-driven, supply chains. With a strong legacy in building persuasive marketing programs, the companies have leveraged a global “one-size-fits-all” push-based supply chain strategy. These traditional supply chain management (SCM) definitions have produced supply chains that respond, but don’t sense. They are efficient, but not adaptive. They tend to be long (greater than twenty weeks) with waste pockets between nodes.
The landscape of the industry has been greatly affected by mergers and acquisitions. In the past decade, 57 companies were absorbed into ten. The industry is still digesting this change. While most companies have 150 unique systems, the manufacturers in this industry will often have five times the industry average. Getting to the right data to improve decision making continues to be a challenge.
What Drives Inventory Effectiveness in a Market-Driven World? Lora Cecere
Survey Details: The research for this report was conducted from February 12 - October 8, 2015. Surveys were conducted among Manufacturers, Retailers, and Wholesalers/Distributors/Co-operatives with $250M+ in revenue and who use (and are familiar with) inventory optimization software (n=64). Respondents were evenly split between those using basic (ERP or ERP+APS) and advanced (software in addition to ERP/APS) software. All surveys were conducted by Supply Chain Insights.
Objective: To understand the impact of inventory optimization software on supply chain excellence. NOTE: inventory optimization software was defined as "any form of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), APS (Advanced Planned Software), or sophisticated inventory planning tools."
Highlight: Companies who use advanced software are more likely to be satisfied with their software, to be effective at making inventory decisions and to drive a return on investment for their software.
A Positive Outlook: Fourth Annual State of the Retail Supply Chain ReportJDA Software
What's top of mind for retail executives? Enhancing fulfillment capabilities. Nearly 90 percent of retailers say that direct-to-consumer fulfillment issues will command a greater level of attention from their supply chain management teams to support online and mobile sales. This according to The Fourth Annual The State of the Retail Supply Chain Study, a JDA sponsored study conducted by Auburn University and the Retail Industry Leaders Association.
For more information about the report and how you can achieve Retail. In Sync. with JDA, visit:
http://now.jda.com/RILA-AuburnStudy-2014.html
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: A Focus on RetailLora Cecere
■Survey Details: The basis of this report is publically available information from corporate annual reports from the period of 2000-2012. In this report, we use this data to understand the past trends and future projections of retail industry supply chains. To drive insights, we augment this financial data with information that we have obtained through interactions with retail clients and recent insights from our quantitative research studies.
■Objective: To use financial balance sheet data coupled with recent research to better understand the state of retail supply chains.
■Hypothesis: With the shifts in the channel, the role of the store has changed, and there is a need to redefine value in the value chain.
Is Mobile the New Answer to Propel Growth?
A new battle wages to redesign the shopping experience. All retailers are turning to mobility, and the use of digital technologies, to capture market share. While mobile strategies offer great opportunities for the extended supply chain, from the shopper through supplier’s supplier, the current focus is on demand generation. It is early. The efforts are in test mode, but excitement abounds.
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: A Focus on Brick & Mortar Retail-18 FEB 2013Lora Cecere
The bricks and mortar retailer is being squeezed. Growth is slowing and margin is under pressure. With the rise of e-commerce, the role of the store is being redefined. It is about service and the customer experience. As a result, it is time to rethink the metrics that matter and focus outside-in on the shopper experience.
In this report, we share insights on the current state of bricks and mortar retail and offer our suggestions.
Brick & mortar retailers have weathered an intense decade with the persistent rise of e-commerce. The shopper has changed and recovery from the Great Recession is ongoing, but slow. Our previous Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: A Focus on Retail report focused on the broader industry trends affecting five different divisions of retailers and the challenges of multi-channel retail. This report narrows the focus to three segments of brick & mortar retailers struggling to adapt to the new world.
A retailer is not a retailer. We believe that retailers should be compared by business model. We do not believe that one can throw all retailers together and identify the “most improved” or “best” supply chain. There are too many variables and circumstances affecting the retail landscape to make valid comparisons. In our research, we find that small and well-defined peer groups offer the best way forward for understanding both segment and industry specific trends.
The industry segments analyzed in this report are grocery, mass and specialty. Grocery retailers are involved in the sale of perishable and non-perishable food stuffs. Mass retailers are larger companies focused on providing a comprehensive retail experience to their customers. Finally, specialty retailers are dedicated to specific customers, activities and goods. The companies in this analysis represent both American and global retailers.
Our grocery peer group consists of Carrefour, Delhaize Group, Safeway and The Kroger Co. The mass retailer peer group includes Costco, Metro, Target and Walmart. The choice of specialty retailers was by far the most difficult because there are so many dedicated stores in this category. For this publication, our peer group includes Bed Bath & Beyond, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Foot Locker and Ross Stores. Additional information about all of these companies is presented in the Appendix.
2015 MHI Annual Industry Report – Supply chain innovation – Making the imposs...Leon Eymael
This year’s annual MHI Industry Report, developed in collaboration with Deloitte, delves more deeply into supply chain challenges with a specific lens on how technology innovation can help illuminate the path to the supply chain of the future.
Put your supply chain to the test in Every Angle's brand new supply chain efficiency quiz. Will you discover new supply chain opportunity that will drive operational improvements across your entire value chain? Or better yet, are you running a world-class outfit that will achieve 100% efficiency?
During this quiz we test five key supply chain elements we've repeatedly found to absorb and waste astonishing amounts of working capital. Cash that could be released and reinvested elsewhere in the business, whilst improving the overall performance of the supply chain!
Remember to let us know how you score. You can follow us on Twitter @EveryAngleUK.
Preserving Supply Base Integrity During an Economic Downturn (15 Page Article)
Are Your Organization’s Current Policies and Practices a Threat to Your Supply Base?
Do your suppliers perceive your current e-procurement strategy as a threat or a benefit to their organization? While it is a simple question, the answer is one that will ultimately determine the success or failure of your e-procurement initiative, and in these challenging financial times even your business itself.
This article will examine how the e-LYNXX methodology accomplishes this seemingly paradoxical, and some would suggest contradictory outcome from the perspective of both the buyers and sellers of specification-defined goods and services. In the end, the information within this article will enable you to ultimately be the judge as to how effective the solution is in achieving the elusive win-win result outcome.
State of Business Networks in Process Industries 2014 - Summary ChartsLora Cecere
Executive Summary
Today, the performance of an organization hinges more than ever on the effectiveness of flows between, and amongst, trading partners. It is not easy. The supply chain is not linear, and the relationships extend across geographic borders and industry sectors.
Outsourcing relationships have grown in the last decade; however, the automation of these networks has not kept pace. In the words of one respondent interviewed for this report in a facilitated workshop to review the data, “Today, we connect trading partners through spreadsheets, email, phone and fax. It is antiquated. I liken it to baling wire, chewing gum and duct tape. I need solutions that can synchronize and harmonize data across trading partners in real-time. My operating committee does not think that it is sexy to invest in B2B solutions, but it is needed. Today, it is almost impossible for us to understand the manufacturing status of purchase orders, and have accurate information readily on supply chain visibility of in-transit shipments. As a result, we make the wrong decisions, and have unnecessary wait times to get information.”
These comments echo the findings in this study. Respondents operate value networks, but they struggle to get to the data they need. The outsourcing of logistics is greater than manufacturing. Eighty-one percent of companies outsource logistics. The volume of outsourced logistics is 48% on average. In contrast, 66% of companies outsource manufacturing. The outsourced volume manufacturing volume varies, but averages 15%.
While the networks are complex, and the goals are many, progress is hard to track. This leads many supply chain leaders to ask, “What is the current state? What is the opportunity?” Answering these questions is the goal of this report.
Let’s start with the current state. As seen in Figure 2, the average respondent in this report believes that the supply chain today is more controlled and global than compared to two years ago. While they have made improvements in agility and proactivity, there is much more left to do. The largest challenges are in the use of outside-in data to improve channel sensing and reduce risk. While the supply chain today has made progress in transactional efficiency, companies are less competent at sensing opportunities and mitigating risks.
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: A Focus on Consumer ElectronicsLora Cecere
Executive Overview
Supply chain management is thirty years old. The year 2012 marked the end of the third decade of the evolution of supply chain practices. In the journey for supply chain excellence, each industry has progressed at their own rate based on their own set of opportunities and limitations including market drivers, industry factors and product cycles. No industry has had greater obstacles to overcome than consumer electronics, and no industry has made more progress.
Consumer electronics has led the pack in managing complexity, improving growth and margin performance, reducing inventory, and accelerating productivity in the face of complexity (revenue per employee). Was it an accident? No, we don’t think so. Instead, we see it as an advanced case study of supply chain excellence in action.
Ask any executive of the consumer electronics industry if supply chain matters and you will get a resounding “YES!” While other industries are more likely to define supply chain efforts as a departmental effort focused within silos—procurement, transportation/distribution or manufacturing—the consumer electronics sector is more likely to model the supply chain as a value network focused on end-to-end improvement. They are also more likely to value the planning function and excel at it, as well as understand how to integrate new product launch efforts with value chain design.
For most companies, the consumer electronics industry offers a lot of lessons and insights for supply chain leaders. It is for this reason that we share this report.
Setting the Stage
Over the course of the last decade, the consumer electronics industry has outperformed most other industries in four significant areas: growth, profitability, cycle management, and complexity. Balancing these four categories of metrics is what we term the Supply Chain Effective Frontier, further profiled in our recent report: Conquering the Supply Chain Effective Frontier.
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: A Focus on Food & Beverage Companies 2017Lora Cecere
Executive Overview
The Food and Beverage industry is a crowded market with many players. While the competition is intense, demand for healthy and fresh food products is high, and the industry is poised to grow in a volatile economy. During tough economic times, consumers will cut spending on products they do not need; however, they will not cut spending on food and beverages to the same extent.
The key to a competitive advantage is aligning and synchronizing the supply chain to manage material spend in the face of ever-changing demand. Few do this well. Consumers want local and fresh. They want brands they can trust. Traditional food manufacturing supply chains are in conflict, offering packaged foods with long shelf lives.
To try to drive excitement, companies invested in line extensions, a variety of different flavors, sizes, and variety packs, all causing supply chain difficulties for them. This complexity added cost, increased demand volatility, and created uncertainty. As a result, companies struggle to anticipate which flavor, or size, consumers will demand at a given time.
Consumers are fickle about what they eat. As a result, the Food and Beverage Industry arguably sees more consumer shift in demand than any other industry. Thus it becomes crucial that food and beverage companies implement outside-In processes. Becoming market-driven allows companies to better sense shifts in demand.
The Food and Beverage industry is also heavily regulated, due to it being a potential risk to so many consumers. The Food Safety Modernization Act dictates that companies must use approved suppliers and perform due diligence in monitoring supplier activity. Product fraud in the Global Food and Beverage industry has been extremely prevalent and presents a high-level risk to the company. Olive oil containing motor oil or corn oil, and alcoholic drinks containing ethanol are examples of fraudulent food products.
Traceability from supplier to consumer becomes ever more important for this industry to ensure product authenticity, as well as establishing trust with the consumer. Smart labeling and track-and-trace visibility are industry imperatives.
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter-A Focus on the Automotive Industry-8 OCT 2013Lora Cecere
The automotive industry is a low margin and concentrated industry with few players. It is a complex business.
Unlike other industries with low margins, the automotive industry has not yet developed supply chain resiliency to weather fluctuations in demand. Over the last decade plus—while other low margin industries have refined processes and technologies to improve profitability and manage cycles and complexity—the automotive industry remains stuck in backwards thinking and old paradigms. This is especially true of the North American automotive companies.
Mark Fasold, Strategic Advisor to Falls River Group (FRG) – IMAP USA, shares with Creating Value the guiding principles companies should follow to optimize their supply chains including the vital dos and don’ts.
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: A Focus on RetailLora Cecere
■Survey Details: The basis of this report is publically available information from corporate annual reports from the period of 2000-2012. In this report, we use this data to understand the past trends and future projections of retail industry supply chains. To drive insights, we augment this financial data with information that we have obtained through interactions with retail clients and recent insights from our quantitative research studies.
■Objective: To use financial balance sheet data coupled with recent research to better understand the state of retail supply chains.
■Hypothesis: With the shifts in the channel, the role of the store has changed, and there is a need to redefine value in the value chain.
Is Mobile the New Answer to Propel Growth?
A new battle wages to redesign the shopping experience. All retailers are turning to mobility, and the use of digital technologies, to capture market share. While mobile strategies offer great opportunities for the extended supply chain, from the shopper through supplier’s supplier, the current focus is on demand generation. It is early. The efforts are in test mode, but excitement abounds.
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: A Focus on Brick & Mortar Retail-18 FEB 2013Lora Cecere
The bricks and mortar retailer is being squeezed. Growth is slowing and margin is under pressure. With the rise of e-commerce, the role of the store is being redefined. It is about service and the customer experience. As a result, it is time to rethink the metrics that matter and focus outside-in on the shopper experience.
In this report, we share insights on the current state of bricks and mortar retail and offer our suggestions.
Brick & mortar retailers have weathered an intense decade with the persistent rise of e-commerce. The shopper has changed and recovery from the Great Recession is ongoing, but slow. Our previous Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: A Focus on Retail report focused on the broader industry trends affecting five different divisions of retailers and the challenges of multi-channel retail. This report narrows the focus to three segments of brick & mortar retailers struggling to adapt to the new world.
A retailer is not a retailer. We believe that retailers should be compared by business model. We do not believe that one can throw all retailers together and identify the “most improved” or “best” supply chain. There are too many variables and circumstances affecting the retail landscape to make valid comparisons. In our research, we find that small and well-defined peer groups offer the best way forward for understanding both segment and industry specific trends.
The industry segments analyzed in this report are grocery, mass and specialty. Grocery retailers are involved in the sale of perishable and non-perishable food stuffs. Mass retailers are larger companies focused on providing a comprehensive retail experience to their customers. Finally, specialty retailers are dedicated to specific customers, activities and goods. The companies in this analysis represent both American and global retailers.
Our grocery peer group consists of Carrefour, Delhaize Group, Safeway and The Kroger Co. The mass retailer peer group includes Costco, Metro, Target and Walmart. The choice of specialty retailers was by far the most difficult because there are so many dedicated stores in this category. For this publication, our peer group includes Bed Bath & Beyond, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Foot Locker and Ross Stores. Additional information about all of these companies is presented in the Appendix.
2015 MHI Annual Industry Report – Supply chain innovation – Making the imposs...Leon Eymael
This year’s annual MHI Industry Report, developed in collaboration with Deloitte, delves more deeply into supply chain challenges with a specific lens on how technology innovation can help illuminate the path to the supply chain of the future.
Put your supply chain to the test in Every Angle's brand new supply chain efficiency quiz. Will you discover new supply chain opportunity that will drive operational improvements across your entire value chain? Or better yet, are you running a world-class outfit that will achieve 100% efficiency?
During this quiz we test five key supply chain elements we've repeatedly found to absorb and waste astonishing amounts of working capital. Cash that could be released and reinvested elsewhere in the business, whilst improving the overall performance of the supply chain!
Remember to let us know how you score. You can follow us on Twitter @EveryAngleUK.
Preserving Supply Base Integrity During an Economic Downturn (15 Page Article)
Are Your Organization’s Current Policies and Practices a Threat to Your Supply Base?
Do your suppliers perceive your current e-procurement strategy as a threat or a benefit to their organization? While it is a simple question, the answer is one that will ultimately determine the success or failure of your e-procurement initiative, and in these challenging financial times even your business itself.
This article will examine how the e-LYNXX methodology accomplishes this seemingly paradoxical, and some would suggest contradictory outcome from the perspective of both the buyers and sellers of specification-defined goods and services. In the end, the information within this article will enable you to ultimately be the judge as to how effective the solution is in achieving the elusive win-win result outcome.
State of Business Networks in Process Industries 2014 - Summary ChartsLora Cecere
Executive Summary
Today, the performance of an organization hinges more than ever on the effectiveness of flows between, and amongst, trading partners. It is not easy. The supply chain is not linear, and the relationships extend across geographic borders and industry sectors.
Outsourcing relationships have grown in the last decade; however, the automation of these networks has not kept pace. In the words of one respondent interviewed for this report in a facilitated workshop to review the data, “Today, we connect trading partners through spreadsheets, email, phone and fax. It is antiquated. I liken it to baling wire, chewing gum and duct tape. I need solutions that can synchronize and harmonize data across trading partners in real-time. My operating committee does not think that it is sexy to invest in B2B solutions, but it is needed. Today, it is almost impossible for us to understand the manufacturing status of purchase orders, and have accurate information readily on supply chain visibility of in-transit shipments. As a result, we make the wrong decisions, and have unnecessary wait times to get information.”
These comments echo the findings in this study. Respondents operate value networks, but they struggle to get to the data they need. The outsourcing of logistics is greater than manufacturing. Eighty-one percent of companies outsource logistics. The volume of outsourced logistics is 48% on average. In contrast, 66% of companies outsource manufacturing. The outsourced volume manufacturing volume varies, but averages 15%.
While the networks are complex, and the goals are many, progress is hard to track. This leads many supply chain leaders to ask, “What is the current state? What is the opportunity?” Answering these questions is the goal of this report.
Let’s start with the current state. As seen in Figure 2, the average respondent in this report believes that the supply chain today is more controlled and global than compared to two years ago. While they have made improvements in agility and proactivity, there is much more left to do. The largest challenges are in the use of outside-in data to improve channel sensing and reduce risk. While the supply chain today has made progress in transactional efficiency, companies are less competent at sensing opportunities and mitigating risks.
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: A Focus on Consumer ElectronicsLora Cecere
Executive Overview
Supply chain management is thirty years old. The year 2012 marked the end of the third decade of the evolution of supply chain practices. In the journey for supply chain excellence, each industry has progressed at their own rate based on their own set of opportunities and limitations including market drivers, industry factors and product cycles. No industry has had greater obstacles to overcome than consumer electronics, and no industry has made more progress.
Consumer electronics has led the pack in managing complexity, improving growth and margin performance, reducing inventory, and accelerating productivity in the face of complexity (revenue per employee). Was it an accident? No, we don’t think so. Instead, we see it as an advanced case study of supply chain excellence in action.
Ask any executive of the consumer electronics industry if supply chain matters and you will get a resounding “YES!” While other industries are more likely to define supply chain efforts as a departmental effort focused within silos—procurement, transportation/distribution or manufacturing—the consumer electronics sector is more likely to model the supply chain as a value network focused on end-to-end improvement. They are also more likely to value the planning function and excel at it, as well as understand how to integrate new product launch efforts with value chain design.
For most companies, the consumer electronics industry offers a lot of lessons and insights for supply chain leaders. It is for this reason that we share this report.
Setting the Stage
Over the course of the last decade, the consumer electronics industry has outperformed most other industries in four significant areas: growth, profitability, cycle management, and complexity. Balancing these four categories of metrics is what we term the Supply Chain Effective Frontier, further profiled in our recent report: Conquering the Supply Chain Effective Frontier.
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: A Focus on Food & Beverage Companies 2017Lora Cecere
Executive Overview
The Food and Beverage industry is a crowded market with many players. While the competition is intense, demand for healthy and fresh food products is high, and the industry is poised to grow in a volatile economy. During tough economic times, consumers will cut spending on products they do not need; however, they will not cut spending on food and beverages to the same extent.
The key to a competitive advantage is aligning and synchronizing the supply chain to manage material spend in the face of ever-changing demand. Few do this well. Consumers want local and fresh. They want brands they can trust. Traditional food manufacturing supply chains are in conflict, offering packaged foods with long shelf lives.
To try to drive excitement, companies invested in line extensions, a variety of different flavors, sizes, and variety packs, all causing supply chain difficulties for them. This complexity added cost, increased demand volatility, and created uncertainty. As a result, companies struggle to anticipate which flavor, or size, consumers will demand at a given time.
Consumers are fickle about what they eat. As a result, the Food and Beverage Industry arguably sees more consumer shift in demand than any other industry. Thus it becomes crucial that food and beverage companies implement outside-In processes. Becoming market-driven allows companies to better sense shifts in demand.
The Food and Beverage industry is also heavily regulated, due to it being a potential risk to so many consumers. The Food Safety Modernization Act dictates that companies must use approved suppliers and perform due diligence in monitoring supplier activity. Product fraud in the Global Food and Beverage industry has been extremely prevalent and presents a high-level risk to the company. Olive oil containing motor oil or corn oil, and alcoholic drinks containing ethanol are examples of fraudulent food products.
Traceability from supplier to consumer becomes ever more important for this industry to ensure product authenticity, as well as establishing trust with the consumer. Smart labeling and track-and-trace visibility are industry imperatives.
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter-A Focus on the Automotive Industry-8 OCT 2013Lora Cecere
The automotive industry is a low margin and concentrated industry with few players. It is a complex business.
Unlike other industries with low margins, the automotive industry has not yet developed supply chain resiliency to weather fluctuations in demand. Over the last decade plus—while other low margin industries have refined processes and technologies to improve profitability and manage cycles and complexity—the automotive industry remains stuck in backwards thinking and old paradigms. This is especially true of the North American automotive companies.
Mark Fasold, Strategic Advisor to Falls River Group (FRG) – IMAP USA, shares with Creating Value the guiding principles companies should follow to optimize their supply chains including the vital dos and don’ts.
It uses oak because it is very versatile for any contemporary home but has a light, smooth, and even grain for that ultimate rustic cottage feel that never goes out of style.
AS media evaluation question one: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of film openings)
Obstacles and benefits to faculty using Open Education Resources. Created as a course assignment for the Washington State Board of Community and Technical Colleges.
McKinsey Sağlık Tedarik Zinciriyle, FMCG Tedarik Zinciri karşılaştırıyor. Sağlık Tedarik Zincirindeki iyileştirme fırsatına ve toplumsal boyutuna dikkat çekiyor.
Pharmaceutical Supply Chains Require New Operational and Technology Models to...Cognizant
To combat slowed growth and industry pressures, pharmaceuticals companies must embrace demand-chain thinking and cloud-enabled solutions to become more agile, flexible and able to share data in real-time with partners.
Endüstri Mühendisliği - Yöneylem teknikleriyle Sağlık Tedarik Zinciri Modellemesidir. Maalesef dünya bu yöntemleri taşıyacak kadar deterministik değildir. Zaten sonraki aşamada fiili model denemesi planlanmış.
The Healthtech Exits site tracks deals and trends in a vital sector. Our goal is to provide relevant records and tools to serve the health technology sector. We want to be a resource for executives and investors in health technologies companies who are considering their strategic growth and exit options in today’s environment.
The opportunities for the Indian pharmaceutical industry are immense but increasing competition, increasing regulatory pressures and stringent price control means that companies need to constantly improve their costs and service levels. Supply chain efficiencies will play a crucial role going forward and will become the key differentiator for companies. Companies will therefore need to adopt an approach that encompasses strategic, tactical and operational interventions to remain competitive and create value for their customers
Delivering Next-Generation Commercial Capabilities within the Pharmaceutical Industry
This Point of View paper, aimed at life sciences Executive Management and leaders in Commercial Operations and Commercial Excellence, provides a blueprint for how forward-looking pharmaceutical companies can build a transformative commercial engine for strategic advantage. Key to this process is the collection and interpretation of the vast array of healthcare data now available. The paper explains how companies can use the insights derived from this information to develop globally consistent, yet locally relevant, customer solutions. It also explores a new collaborative model that partners external analytical, technological and functional area expertise with the client’s internal resources to create cost efficiencies, build internal capabilities and improve commercial processes that fuel growth.
On-Demand business models reshaping Healthcare IndustrynextJuggernaut
Its a well analysed discussion on the successful business models in the on-demand healthcare sector. It illustrates these facts with live examples from the industry which will help you on your next Uber for Health.
Serialization: Driving Business Value Beyond ComplianceCognizant
As serialization and track-and-trace capabilities go mainstream to meet regulatory compliance mandates, pharmaceuticals companies should simultaneously explore how these tools and techniques can improve supply chain planning and operations, elevate patient and doctor engagement, and increase sales and marketing effectiveness.
Serialization: Driving Business Value Beyond ComplianceCognizant
Serialization and track-and-trace capabilities are not just useful for meeting regulatory compliance mandates; pharmaceutical companies can also explore their use to improve supply chain planning and operations, elevate patient engagement, and increase sales and marketing effectiveness.
THE AGILE SUPPLY CHAIN IN TURBULENT AND VOLATILE MARKETIAEME Publication
Agility is the fundamental characteristic of a supply chain needed for survival in turbulent and volatile markets, which are becoming normal, as product life cycles shorten and environmental forces create additional uncertainty resulting in higher risk in the supply chain management. Agility further helps in providing the right product, at the right time to the consumer, which is the main objective of any supply chain.
Being responsive is an increasingly important skill for firms in today's global economy; thus firms must be agile. Naturally, it follows that an organization's agility depends on its supply chain being agile. However, achieving supply chain agility is a function of other abilities within the organization, specifically supply chain flexibility and technology integration. The integration enables a firm to tap its supply chain flexibility which in turn results in higher supply chain agility and ultimately higher competitive business performance.
Historically, the medical device industry has been highly attractive and relatively stable. As a consequence, established players have been able to compete successfully across the device spectrum, applying common business models and processes without much need for differentiation.
The future, however, is very different as disruptive change is underway. Companies will need to look at new segments and offer end-to-end solutions to secure additional revenue and maintain their profit margins.
Navigating Challenges: Mental Health, Legislation, and the Prison System in B...Guillermo Rivera
This conference will delve into the intricate intersections between mental health, legal frameworks, and the prison system in Bolivia. It aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the current challenges faced by mental health professionals working within the legislative and correctional landscapes. Topics of discussion will include the prevalence and impact of mental health issues among the incarcerated population, the effectiveness of existing mental health policies and legislation, and potential reforms to enhance the mental health support system within prisons.
CRISPR-Cas9, a revolutionary gene-editing tool, holds immense potential to reshape medicine, agriculture, and our understanding of life. But like any powerful tool, it comes with ethical considerations.
Unveiling CRISPR: This naturally occurring bacterial defense system (crRNA & Cas9 protein) fights viruses. Scientists repurposed it for precise gene editing (correction, deletion, insertion) by targeting specific DNA sequences.
The Promise: CRISPR offers exciting possibilities:
Gene Therapy: Correcting genetic diseases like cystic fibrosis.
Agriculture: Engineering crops resistant to pests and harsh environments.
Research: Studying gene function to unlock new knowledge.
The Peril: Ethical concerns demand attention:
Off-target Effects: Unintended DNA edits can have unforeseen consequences.
Eugenics: Misusing CRISPR for designer babies raises social and ethical questions.
Equity: High costs could limit access to this potentially life-saving technology.
The Path Forward: Responsible development is crucial:
International Collaboration: Clear guidelines are needed for research and human trials.
Public Education: Open discussions ensure informed decisions about CRISPR.
Prioritize Safety and Ethics: Safety and ethical principles must be paramount.
CRISPR offers a powerful tool for a better future, but responsible development and addressing ethical concerns are essential. By prioritizing safety, fostering open dialogue, and ensuring equitable access, we can harness CRISPR's power for the benefit of all. (2998 characters)
Medical Technology Tackles New Health Care Demand - Research Report - March 2...pchutichetpong
M Capital Group (“MCG”) predicts that with, against, despite, and even without the global pandemic, the medical technology (MedTech) industry shows signs of continuous healthy growth, driven by smaller, faster, and cheaper devices, growing demand for home-based applications, technological innovation, strategic acquisitions, investments, and SPAC listings. MCG predicts that this should reflects itself in annual growth of over 6%, well beyond 2028.
According to Chris Mouchabhani, Managing Partner at M Capital Group, “Despite all economic scenarios that one may consider, beyond overall economic shocks, medical technology should remain one of the most promising and robust sectors over the short to medium term and well beyond 2028.”
There is a movement towards home-based care for the elderly, next generation scanning and MRI devices, wearable technology, artificial intelligence incorporation, and online connectivity. Experts also see a focus on predictive, preventive, personalized, participatory, and precision medicine, with rising levels of integration of home care and technological innovation.
The average cost of treatment has been rising across the board, creating additional financial burdens to governments, healthcare providers and insurance companies. According to MCG, cost-per-inpatient-stay in the United States alone rose on average annually by over 13% between 2014 to 2021, leading MedTech to focus research efforts on optimized medical equipment at lower price points, whilst emphasizing portability and ease of use. Namely, 46% of the 1,008 medical technology companies in the 2021 MedTech Innovator (“MTI”) database are focusing on prevention, wellness, detection, or diagnosis, signaling a clear push for preventive care to also tackle costs.
In addition, there has also been a lasting impact on consumer and medical demand for home care, supported by the pandemic. Lockdowns, closure of care facilities, and healthcare systems subjected to capacity pressure, accelerated demand away from traditional inpatient care. Now, outpatient care solutions are driving industry production, with nearly 70% of recent diagnostics start-up companies producing products in areas such as ambulatory clinics, at-home care, and self-administered diagnostics.
Explore our infographic on 'Essential Metrics for Palliative Care Management' which highlights key performance indicators crucial for enhancing the quality and efficiency of palliative care services.
This visual guide breaks down important metrics across four categories: Patient-Centered Metrics, Care Efficiency Metrics, Quality of Life Metrics, and Staff Metrics. Each section is designed to help healthcare professionals monitor and improve care delivery for patients facing serious illnesses. Understand how to implement these metrics in your palliative care practices for better outcomes and higher satisfaction levels.
How many patients does case series should have In comparison to case reports.pdfpubrica101
Pubrica’s team of researchers and writers create scientific and medical research articles, which may be important resources for authors and practitioners. Pubrica medical writers assist you in creating and revising the introduction by alerting the reader to gaps in the chosen study subject. Our professionals understand the order in which the hypothesis topic is followed by the broad subject, the issue, and the backdrop.
https://pubrica.com/academy/case-study-or-series/how-many-patients-does-case-series-should-have-in-comparison-to-case-reports/
CHAPTER 1 SEMESTER V - ROLE OF PEADIATRIC NURSE.pdfSachin Sharma
Pediatric nurses play a vital role in the health and well-being of children. Their responsibilities are wide-ranging, and their objectives can be categorized into several key areas:
1. Direct Patient Care:
Objective: Provide comprehensive and compassionate care to infants, children, and adolescents in various healthcare settings (hospitals, clinics, etc.).
This includes tasks like:
Monitoring vital signs and physical condition.
Administering medications and treatments.
Performing procedures as directed by doctors.
Assisting with daily living activities (bathing, feeding).
Providing emotional support and pain management.
2. Health Promotion and Education:
Objective: Promote healthy behaviors and educate children, families, and communities about preventive healthcare.
This includes tasks like:
Administering vaccinations.
Providing education on nutrition, hygiene, and development.
Offering breastfeeding and childbirth support.
Counseling families on safety and injury prevention.
3. Collaboration and Advocacy:
Objective: Collaborate effectively with doctors, social workers, therapists, and other healthcare professionals to ensure coordinated care for children.
Objective: Advocate for the rights and best interests of their patients, especially when children cannot speak for themselves.
This includes tasks like:
Communicating effectively with healthcare teams.
Identifying and addressing potential risks to child welfare.
Educating families about their child's condition and treatment options.
4. Professional Development and Research:
Objective: Stay up-to-date on the latest advancements in pediatric healthcare through continuing education and research.
Objective: Contribute to improving the quality of care for children by participating in research initiatives.
This includes tasks like:
Attending workshops and conferences on pediatric nursing.
Participating in clinical trials related to child health.
Implementing evidence-based practices into their daily routines.
By fulfilling these objectives, pediatric nurses play a crucial role in ensuring the optimal health and well-being of children throughout all stages of their development.
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Growing Prevalence of Lifestyle Diseases
The rising incidence of lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer is a major trend driving the clinical trials market in India. These conditions necessitate the development and testing of new treatment methods, creating a robust demand for clinical trials. The increasing burden of these diseases highlights the need for innovative therapies and underscores the importance of India as a key player in global clinical research.
Antibiotic Stewardship by Anushri Srivastava.pptxAnushriSrivastav
Stewardship is the act of taking good care of something.
Antimicrobial stewardship is a coordinated program that promotes the appropriate use of antimicrobials (including antibiotics), improves patient outcomes, reduces microbial resistance, and decreases the spread of infections caused by multidrug-resistant organisms.
WHO launched the Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System (GLASS) in 2015 to fill knowledge gaps and inform strategies at all levels.
ACCORDING TO apic.org,
Antimicrobial stewardship is a coordinated program that promotes the appropriate use of antimicrobials (including antibiotics), improves patient outcomes, reduces microbial resistance, and decreases the spread of infections caused by multidrug-resistant organisms.
ACCORDING TO pewtrusts.org,
Antibiotic stewardship refers to efforts in doctors’ offices, hospitals, long term care facilities, and other health care settings to ensure that antibiotics are used only when necessary and appropriate
According to WHO,
Antimicrobial stewardship is a systematic approach to educate and support health care professionals to follow evidence-based guidelines for prescribing and administering antimicrobials
In 1996, John McGowan and Dale Gerding first applied the term antimicrobial stewardship, where they suggested a causal association between antimicrobial agent use and resistance. They also focused on the urgency of large-scale controlled trials of antimicrobial-use regulation employing sophisticated epidemiologic methods, molecular typing, and precise resistance mechanism analysis.
Antimicrobial Stewardship(AMS) refers to the optimal selection, dosing, and duration of antimicrobial treatment resulting in the best clinical outcome with minimal side effects to the patients and minimal impact on subsequent resistance.
According to the 2019 report, in the US, more than 2.8 million antibiotic-resistant infections occur each year, and more than 35000 people die. In addition to this, it also mentioned that 223,900 cases of Clostridoides difficile occurred in 2017, of which 12800 people died. The report did not include viruses or parasites
VISION
Being proactive
Supporting optimal animal and human health
Exploring ways to reduce overall use of antimicrobials
Using the drugs that prevent and treat disease by killing microscopic organisms in a responsible way
GOAL
to prevent the generation and spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Doing so will preserve the effectiveness of these drugs in animals and humans for years to come.
being to preserve human and animal health and the effectiveness of antimicrobial medications.
to implement a multidisciplinary approach in assembling a stewardship team to include an infectious disease physician, a clinical pharmacist with infectious diseases training, infection preventionist, and a close collaboration with the staff in the clinical microbiology laboratory
to prevent antimicrobial overuse, misuse and abuse.
to minimize the developme
Global launch of the Healthy Ageing and Prevention Index 2nd wave – alongside...ILC- UK
The Healthy Ageing and Prevention Index is an online tool created by ILC that ranks countries on six metrics including, life span, health span, work span, income, environmental performance, and happiness. The Index helps us understand how well countries have adapted to longevity and inform decision makers on what must be done to maximise the economic benefits that comes with living well for longer.
Alongside the 77th World Health Assembly in Geneva on 28 May 2024, we launched the second version of our Index, allowing us to track progress and give new insights into what needs to be done to keep populations healthier for longer.
The speakers included:
Professor Orazio Schillaci, Minister of Health, Italy
Dr Hans Groth, Chairman of the Board, World Demographic & Ageing Forum
Professor Ilona Kickbusch, Founder and Chair, Global Health Centre, Geneva Graduate Institute and co-chair, World Health Summit Council
Dr Natasha Azzopardi Muscat, Director, Country Health Policies and Systems Division, World Health Organisation EURO
Dr Marta Lomazzi, Executive Manager, World Federation of Public Health Associations
Dr Shyam Bishen, Head, Centre for Health and Healthcare and Member of the Executive Committee, World Economic Forum
Dr Karin Tegmark Wisell, Director General, Public Health Agency of Sweden
Defecation
Normal defecation begins with movement in the left colon, moving stool toward the anus. When stool reaches the rectum, the distention causes relaxation of the internal sphincter and an awareness of the need to defecate. At the time of defecation, the external sphincter relaxes, and abdominal muscles contract, increasing intrarectal pressure and forcing the stool out
The Valsalva maneuver exerts pressure to expel faeces through a voluntary contraction of the abdominal muscles while maintaining forced expiration against a closed airway. Patients with cardiovascular disease, glaucoma, increased intracranial pressure, or a new surgical wound are at greater risk for cardiac dysrhythmias and elevated blood pressure with the Valsalva maneuver and need to avoid straining to pass the stool.
Normal defecation is painless, resulting in passage of soft, formed stool
CONSTIPATION
Constipation is a symptom, not a disease. Improper diet, reduced fluid intake, lack of exercise, and certain medications can cause constipation. For example, patients receiving opiates for pain after surgery often require a stool softener or laxative to prevent constipation. The signs of constipation include infrequent bowel movements (less than every 3 days), difficulty passing stools, excessive straining, inability to defecate at will, and hard feaces
IMPACTION
Fecal impaction results from unrelieved constipation. It is a collection of hardened feces wedged in the rectum that a person cannot expel. In cases of severe impaction the mass extends up into the sigmoid colon.
DIARRHEA
Diarrhea is an increase in the number of stools and the passage of liquid, unformed feces. It is associated with disorders affecting digestion, absorption, and secretion in the GI tract. Intestinal contents pass through the small and large intestine too quickly to allow for the usual absorption of fluid and nutrients. Irritation within the colon results in increased mucus secretion. As a result, feces become watery, and the patient is unable to control the urge to defecate. Normally an anal bag is safe and effective in long-term treatment of patients with fecal incontinence at home, in hospice, or in the hospital. Fecal incontinence is expensive and a potentially dangerous condition in terms of contamination and risk of skin ulceration
HEMORRHOIDS
Hemorrhoids are dilated, engorged veins in the lining of the rectum. They are either external or internal.
FLATULENCE
As gas accumulates in the lumen of the intestines, the bowel wall stretches and distends (flatulence). It is a common cause of abdominal fullness, pain, and cramping. Normally intestinal gas escapes through the mouth (belching) or the anus (passing of flatus)
FECAL INCONTINENCE
Fecal incontinence is the inability to control passage of feces and gas from the anus. Incontinence harms a patient’s body image
PREPARATION AND GIVING OF LAXATIVESACCORDING TO POTTER AND PERRY,
An enema is the instillation of a solution into the rectum and sig
Leading the Way in Nephrology: Dr. David Greene's Work with Stem Cells for Ki...Dr. David Greene Arizona
As we watch Dr. Greene's continued efforts and research in Arizona, it's clear that stem cell therapy holds a promising key to unlocking new doors in the treatment of kidney disease. With each study and trial, we step closer to a world where kidney disease is no longer a life sentence but a treatable condition, thanks to pioneers like Dr. David Greene.
Leading the Way in Nephrology: Dr. David Greene's Work with Stem Cells for Ki...
How to Add Agility and Customer Focus to the Healthcare Supply Chain
1. How to add agility and
customer focus to the
healthcare supply chain
Martin Christopher, Emeritus Professor of
Marketing and Logistics, Cranfield University, UK.
2. Introduction
The global pharmaceutical and healthcare industry has
experienced a number of severe shocks to the system in
recent decades. What was once a sector where profits flowed
from ‘blockbuster’ drugs and a customer base willing to
pay premium prices has transformed into a quite different
world as a consequence of competition from generics along
with reduced budgets available to healthcare providers.
Compounding these problems are increasing regulatory
constraints and more challenging logistics requirements as
bio-pharmaceuticals and related products increase the need
for stricter control of temperature and shelf-life as they move
through the supply chain.
As a result there is now a significantly greater focus across
the sector on supply chain management. Previously, when
margins were higher and logistics costs were a relatively
small proportion of total costs, supply chain issues tended
to take a back seat. Now things have changed. Recent
research by UPS®
has highlighted that many companies are
finding it difficult to develop supply chain capabilities that
can simultaneously take out costs whilst ensuring regulatory
compliance, track and trace, product security and stricter
temperature and shelf-life control.
Because of these pressures, a new approach to the design
and management of supply/demand networks in the industry
becomes imperative. In today’s marketplace, there is a need
for supply chains that are cost-effective, efficient and agile.
Companies operating in every industrial sector and in
every market around the world have been confronted in
recent years with significant challenges. These challenges
have come from numerous sources – economic recession,
demographic changes, geo-political upheavals to name but
a few. The healthcare and pharmaceutical industry has been
no exception and has been impacted by major changes in the
competitive and market environment.
Amongst these business transformations
some of the most critical have been:
Shift from a sellers’ market to a
buyers’ market
Commoditisation of markets
and the growth of generics
Increasing supply chain complexity
In common with many other industries, pharma has been
impacted by the growing power of its customer base.
For example, the increasing consolidation amongst retail
pharmacies has led to greater demands for high levels
of service and responsiveness. Likewise, hospitals and
government agencies have used their buying power to
demand lower prices and have used regulation to specify
which drugs may or may not be made available through
public health services.
With the expiration of patents on what were once
‘blockbuster’ drugs sold at higher prices, the rise of lower
cost generic manufacturers has been dramatic. In 2015
it was estimated that drugs worth about US $4 billion
in revenue were subject to generic competition –
representing about 40% of the pharma market globally,
up from 27% in 20101
. The effect of this new source of
competition on established players in the industry has been
significant, leading to large parts of the market becoming
‘commoditised’ and subject to increasing pressure on price.
Complexity in the pharma supply chain has many sources. The manufacturing
process by its very nature often involves long lead times and uncertain yields.
The growing range of products and the number of variants within a product family
mean that total stock-keeping units (SKUs) continue to rise in many companies.
In addition, the need to service multiple geographic markets and to provide local
customised solutions for specific customers as well as meeting local regulatory
requirements add to supply chain complexity. These pressures have significantly
impacted the cost profile of pharma supply chains.
1
IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics report. Counted in ‘Five steps towards a revitalized pharmaceutical supply chain’ strategy +
business Issue 66, Spring 2013
3. Turbulence,
Volatility and
Uncertainty
Most supply chains today were
designed some years ago when
the world was a different place.
There is evidence2
to suggest that
up until about the year 2000 most
businesses had experienced several
decades of relative stability in
the competitive environment.
The assumption was that the future
would be much like the past and
hence decisions could be taken on
the design of supply chains with
a degree of confidence that they
would still be fit for purpose for
many years to come.
Previously, when designing supply/
demand networks, the focus
was on cost optimisation, i.e. the
objective being to design a supply
chain solution that would minimise
operating costs whilst meeting
pre-specified levels of service.
The emphasis was primarily on
efficiency and working to plans
which had horizons stretching
some way into the future. Because
of the relatively stable conditions
that prevailed across the supply
chain this ‘forecast-driven’ business
model was entirely appropriate.
2
Christopher, M. and Holweg, M. (2011), “Supply Chain 2.0: Managing supply chains in an era of turbulence” International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management Vol. 40,
No. 1, pp 63-82
Many companies
in healthcare and
pharma are currently
struggling with how
to devise a supply
chain strategy that
can deliver more value
whilst still containing
costs. The answer
lies in a fundamental
re-think of the
architecture of the
supply chain itself.
Hence, rather than the vertical
integration of the past, the company
is part of a network of specialist –
but independent – suppliers utilising
multiple channels to go to market.
These networks are connected by
shared information which itself is
captured in as close to real-time as
possible. This information comprises
demand signals from the marketplace
as well as the current status of supply
conditions across the network. The
aim now is to achieve the ‘economies
of scope’, i.e. to be able to meet the
precise needs of different customers
but with the same resources – a
strategy made possible often by
postponement of the final manufacture
or packaging of the product.
Customer-driven
supply chains
When there is so much emphasis on
cost reduction across the supply chain
it is easy to forget that success in the
market place is largely determined
by the value that a product delivers.
Customer value comes in many forms
and the supply chain might be thought
of as a value delivery system. The
specific ways in which the supply
chain delivers value is through
availability, responsiveness and the
provision of tailored solutions.
As we have already observed, most
traditional supply chains were
designed to optimise the internal
operations of the supplying company.
Thus a manufacturer might be
motivated to establish supply and
distribution arrangements that would
enable production efficiencies to
be maximised. Typically this would
entail manufacturing in large batches,
shipping in large quantities and
buffering the factory – both upstream
and downstream – with inventory.
Whilst this approach was fine from
the perspective of the manufacturing
organisation, it clearly did not come
anywhere close to being ‘customer
centric’, instead of designing supply
chains from the ‘factory outwards’ the
challenge is to design them from the
‘customer backwards’.
To meet this challenge healthcare
businesses need to focus their efforts
upon achieving greater agility so that
they can respond more rapidly both in
terms of volume change and variety
change. In other words, they need
to be able to adjust output quickly to
match market demand and to switch
rapidly from one variant to another.
To a truly agile business, volatility of
demand is not a problem; its processes
and organisational structure as well as
its supply chain relationships enable it
to cope with whatever demands are
placed upon it.
Demand
driven
Yesterday’s model
Vertical integration
Inventory based
Economies of scale
Tomorrow’s model
Virtual networks
Information based
Economies of scope
Forecast
driven
Mass
production
Mass
customisation
However, as we entered the
21st century conditions began to
change. Volatility and turbulence
are now the backdrop against
which business decisions have to
be made. One of the main impacts
of these changes has been the
increase in uncertainty making it
more difficult to plan ahead using
conventional forecasts. If, as some
have suggested, these conditions of
constant and unpredictable change
are to become the ‘new normal’
then supply chain management will
have to change accordingly.
Rather than the forecast-driven
model that has typified supply
chain management for so long, a
new model that is ‘demand-driven’
and responsive to change will
have to be developed.
Figure 1 below highlights the
challenge facing companies as
they move from a world where
mass-production and forward
planning were the fundamental
principles to a world where market
responsiveness and flexibility
become the drivers.
Thus the traditional supply chain
model – the lower left hand
quadrant in figure 1 – was based
around vertical integration -
upstream and/or downstream
- with a high degree of control. It
was based on building inventory
ahead of demand and a production
‘push’ philosophy. Ultimately, the
main objective of the supply chain
strategy under this model was to
achieve economies of scale.
Now as we enter the era of change
and uncertainty, a much more
flexible and responsive capability is
required. This is the world depicted
in the top right hand quadrant of
Figure 1.
Figure 1: Supply chain
transformation
4. The foundations
of agility 3
It will be apparent that agility is not a single
company concept but rather it extends from
one end of the supply chain to the other. The
concept of agility has significant implications for
how healthcare organizations and their suppliers
relate to each other and how they can best work
together on the basis of shared information.
To bring these ideas together, a number of basic
principles can be identified as the starting point
for the creation of the agile supply chain.
Synchronize
activities through
shared information
Synchronisation implies that all parties in
the supply chain are ‘marching to the same
drumbeat’. In other words, through shared
information and process alignment there is
in effect one set of numbers and a single
schedule for the entire supply chain. This
somewhat utopian vision is increasingly
becoming reality as web-based technology
and cloud computing enables different entities
in a network to share information on real
demand, inventory and capacity in
a collaborative context.
Global logistics providers, such as UPS,
maintain sophisticated inventory management
systems for their contract logistics operations
that can be fully integrated with their
customers’ Enterprise Resource Planning (ERS)
software to ensure that the title holder has full
visibility on stock levels, and logistics provider
full visibility on incoming deliveries.
By improving the visibility of downstream
demand, healthcare companies can move
towards the goal of continuous replenishment
whereby as products are consumed they are
automatically replaced thus dramatically
reducing the need for safety stocks. This
principle of ‘substituting information for
inventory’ holds good for any industry but
has a particular resonance for the healthcare
sector where the cost of holding inventory
can be high.
Work smarter
not harder
Many processes in the supply chain
are lengthy because the constituent
activities are performed in ‘series’, i.e.
in a linear, ‘one after the other’ way.
It is often possible to reduce lead times
by conducting a supply chain mapping
exercise and re-engineer processes
where activities are performed ‘in
parallel’, i.e. simultaneously.
For pharmaceutical companies, it is
essential to map the current supply
chain from end-to-end, not simply
the transportation of goods, but the
flow of materials and data within
the organisation, both upstream
from its suppliers and downstream
to its customers, all the way to care
providers and their patients. Almost
without exception, this exercise
uncovers logistics processes that are
based on the organisation’s history
rather than its current reality or its
strategic vision.
1
2
Many opportunities exist in the healthcare sector to
establish procedures for information sharing so that a
greater level of synchronisation across the supply
chain can be achieved.
3
This section draws on material from the author’s book Logistics and Supply
Chain Management (5th
Edition) Pearson, 2016
5. Seek to reduce
complexity
Complexity comes in many guises in supply chains.
Complexity may be generated by multiple variants
of the same product, e.g. different pack sizes, or by
each product in a family having greatly different Bills
of Material, or by frequent product changes, and
so on. Complexity can also be generated through
cumbersome processes that involve many different
stages and hand-offs. Simplification is an obvious
remedy for complexity but one which may not
always be available. However, there will often be
opportunities to reduce complexity by questioning
the reasons why things are the way they are.
For example, is the level of product variety greater
than the customer actually requires? Often product
proliferation is driven by sales or marketing
departments and may not actually achieve additional
sales but spread the same total demand over a
Postpone the final
configuration/assembly/
distribution of products
The philosophy of postponement ideally would
begin on the drawing board so that products are
designed with late configuration in mind. The
longer that products can remain as generic ‘work
in progress’, the more flexibility there will be to
ensure the ‘right product in the right place at the
right time’.
Postponement may not always be feasible in terms
of late configuration but there may be scope for
spatial postponement through holding inventory
in just a few locations with the ability to ship the
product rapidly to the location required when an
order is received. In the pharmaceutical industry
many companies have started to explore the
opportunities for delaying the final packaging of
the product until it is known which country the
product will be shipped to. The idea here is that
products are produced with a standardised primary
packaging at global packaging sites and shipped to
regional distribution centres exploiting economies
of scale. And only after receiving a specific
customer order, will the product be customised
with a designated secondary packaging containing
relevant country information.
4
5
Partner with
suppliers to reduce
in-bound lead times
Conventionally, firms have maintained an arm’s-
length relationship with suppliers. Suppliers have
often been chosen on the basis of price rather
than their responsiveness. A major opportunity
exists for reducing in-bound lead times through
working closely with key suppliers. Because in the
past there was often a view that suppliers should
be held at ‘arms length’, many opportunities for
improving responsiveness have been missed. Since
supplier agility is one of the main requirements in
the creation of a more responsive supply chain, it is
perhaps surprising that some businesses even now
have few collaborative programmes with suppliers
in place.
Often suppliers may well be able to transfer
knowledge and best practice from their operations
to their customers – and vice versa. In either case,
the opportunities to reduce in-bound lead times
by closer partnership across the supply chain
are considerable.
3
greater number of stock keeping units (SKUs).
The greater the fragmentation of demand, the
harder it becomes to manage availability in that
the variability of demand at the individual item
level will tend to be higher.
Simplification can sometimes be achieved through
seeking greater commonality of raw materials,
components or sub-assembly across a family of
products. For example, in automobile design these
days it is increasingly the case that several different
models of car are built on the same platform and
‘under the skin’ share common components and
sub-assemblies. Similar opportunities should be
available in the medical device industry but may
require product design changes to make it possible.
The point about complexity is that it provides a
barrier to agility as well as generating cost.
6. Manage processes not
just functions
For centuries organisations have followed an
organisational logic based upon the ‘division
of labour’ whereby activities take place within
functions or departments. Whilst this functionally-
based organisational concept may ensure the
efficient use of resources it is actually inwardly
focused and tends to lead to a ‘silo’ type mentality.
It also seems to be the case that these functionally-
based organizations are slow to respond to changes
in the market or business environment. Because
there are often multiple ‘hand-offs’ as things get
passed from one function to another, there is an
inevitable lengthening in the time to respond.
Companies that are able to respond rapidly to
changing customer requirements tend to focus
more upon managing ‘processes’. Processes
are the horizontal, market-facing sequences of
activities that create value for customers. They are
cross-functional by definition and are usually best
managed through the means of inter-disciplinary
teams. The critical business processes that cut
across the organisation would include innovation,
customer relationship management and supplier
relationship management.
Healthcare companies, often because of long
development lead-times and burdensome
regulatory regimes, are accustomed to lengthy end-
to-end supply chains and may not have considered
how they could increase the ‘clockspeed’ of their
processes. Even with the constraints specific to the
sector, significant improvements to critical supply
chain processes, such as procure-to-pay and order-
to-cash, could be achieved by borrowing ideas on
time compression from other industries such as
automotive and consumer electronics.
Utilize appropriate
performance metrics
It is a truism that performance measurement
shapes behaviour. This is particularly the
case in business organisations where formal
measurement systems drive the business.
In functionally-based organisations these
measurements often are based upon
departmental budgets and are underpinned
by objectives such as cost minimisation, asset
utilisation and efficiency and productivity
improvement. Whilst on the face of it these
objectives may appear to be desirable, they
will not necessarily encourage agile practices
within the organisation. If, for example, a
manufacturing facility is measured on, say,
unit cost of production, then the incentive will
be to go for big batch sizes to take advantage
of economies of scale. However, such actions
will probably lead to a loss of flexibility and
the creation of additional inventory. If, on the
other hand, time-based metrics were to be
employed, then the focus could be on cycle-
time reduction, set-up time reduction and other
measures that encourage agile practices.
A fundamental tenet of agility is customer
responsiveness, hence the need to ensure that
the primary measures of business performance
reflect this imperative. ‘Time to market’
and ‘time to volume’ are powerful metrics
employed by companies where short life
cycles dictate a focus on rapid response to
fast-changing markets and volatile customer
demand. This is particularly true for the
healthcare industry where the pressures
from the marketplace are making ‘time-
based competition’ a critical differentiator.
Unfortunately, many companies, whilst they
may recognise the need for higher levels of
agility, still retain the traditional, inwardly-
focused and efficiency-based metrics. Any
business that is serious about becoming a
demand-driven organisation needs to ensure
that the performance measures it employs are
encouraging the right behaviour.
6 7
7. A routemap to responsiveness
As we observed earlier, conventional supply chains are
typically designed from the factory outwards. In other
words, they tend to be structured to enable the company’s
internal efficiencies to be optimised. So, for example, in a
manufacturing environment the objective has often been
to achieve low-cost production with high levels of capacity
utilisation with the consequent need to warehouse products
which are manufactured in economic batch sizes.
By contrast, a customer-driven supply chain recognises the
primacy of the needs of the customer. Rather than the ‘one
size fits all’ philosophy of the conventional supply chain, the
implication of adopting a customer-driven approach is that
there will be a high level of tailoring and customisation of
the service offer to respond quickly to market changes
and meet customer demands.
The responsive business will have agile suppliers and
will work very closely with them to align processes
across the extended enterprise. It will also be very close
to its customers, capturing information on real demand
and sharing that information with its partners across the
network. Internally the business will also be focused on
agility through the way it organises – breaking through
functional silos to create process teams. In terms of its
manufacturing and sourcing strategy, the responsive
business will seek to marry the lean and agile paradigm
through de-coupling its upstream and downstream
processes, utilising the principles of postponement wherever
possible. Figure 2 summarizes the key elements.
Those companies that can follow this routemap will be more
likely to be the leaders in their field. More often than not,
when we look at the successful companies in any market,
they tend to be the ones that have demonstrated their
ability to respond more rapidly to the changing needs
of their customers.
Whatever the supply chain solution
that is adopted, ultimately its
‘architecture’ must be market driven.
Generic
Inventory
Capacity
management
Set-up time
reduction
Visibility
of real
demand
Quick
response
Demand
driven
The
responsive
business
Design
for late
configuration
Vendor
managed
inventory
Sychronized
production
Process
management
Cross-
functional
teams
Postponement
strategies
Agile
suppliers
Organisational
agilityFlexible
response
Figure 2. Routemap to the
responsive business
8. Conclusion
As is the case for many industries, the ‘centre of gravity’ of the
pharmaceutical and healthcare supply chain is shifting. With the
growth of emerging markets new challenges emerge as existing
supply chain solutions will probably no longer be adequate.
The likelihood is that more ‘local-for-local’ manufacturing and
logistics strategies will be applied rather than seeking to serve
these markets through existing western-centric supply chains.
If this is the case, companies in the sector may struggle with
issues such as the protection of intellectual property, product
security, counterfeiting and compliance with different regulatory
environments as they seek to develop their presence in
these markets.
Partnerships with logistics service providers who have developed
specific knowledge and capabilities in the sector and with the
experience of operating in different geographies may provide a
way forward. Again, the need for sophisticated tracking tools to
monitor products as they move through complex supply networks
also makes the idea of partnerships with specialist logistics service
providers an attractive proposition.
One thing is clear and that is that yesterday’s solutions will not
work in tomorrow’s world. The turbulent economic conditions and
the heightened uncertainty that have characterized the recent past
are likely to prevail for some time. As a consequence healthcare
companies must be prepared to re-engineer their supply chains to
build in greater levels of flexibility and adaptability. Typically, many
current supply chain arrangements are not able to be reconfigured
rapidly if conditions change. Rather than seeking to optimise
supply/demand networks in terms of cost – as has usually been the
case in the past – smart companies are optimising their networks
with flexibility and responsiveness in mind. Over one hundred and
fifty years ago Charles Darwin provided us with an insight which
should be the guiding principle underpinning the development of
future supply chain strategy:
“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the
most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change”
Supplychaintransformation:
How UPS can help…
Historically, the design of pharmaceutical supply chains was determined primarily
by the achievement of high delivery reliability as well as high delivery readiness.
Companies have achieved these objectives by keeping a large inventory of
finished goods close to the customer in addition to executing reliable
production and logistic processes.
However, looking at the healthcare industry’s growth trajectory, companies are
advised to constantly re-evaluate their supply structures and put in place the
right resources, technologies and processes to meet supply chain demands.
A number of leading global healthcare corporations have found that the most
effective, timely and efficient means of success is to work with a global logistics
integrator that can provide turnkey, scalable solutions for end-to-end supply chain
management, from upstream supplier to ultimate customer.
UPS provides solutions for many of the elements outlined in Professor
Christopher’s ‘Routemap to a responsive business’ - from postponement services,
to demand visibility and process improvement. We work collaboratively with
our customers to understand their business and help them redesign and optimise
their supply chain using a tried and tested approach. We consider key criteria that
includes sourcing, manufacturing, distribution, delivery, fulfilment and returns—
analysing the entire network. We look at service levels, distances, operating
costs, inventory levels etc. to develop a “what if” planning exercise on which
logistics decisions can be based. We manage thousands of sensitive healthcare
shipments every day and have helped numerous clients across the life science
industry perform better and realize greater efficiencies.
If you are facing a logistics problem or want to rebuild your supply chain to be
agile and more responsive to customers’ needs, I invite you to contact UPS.
We are here to help.
Jan Denecker
Director Healthcare Marketing and Strategy
UPS Europe
Visit solvers.ups.com/gb/healthcare
About
the author
Martin Christopher has
been at the forefront of the
development of new thinking
in logistics and supply chain
management for over thirty
years. His contribution to the
theory and practice of logistics
and supply chain management
is reflected in the many
international awards that he has
received. His published work is
widely cited by other scholars
and he has been invited
to participate in academic
and industry events around
the world.
www.martin-christopher.info