Pharmaceutical Logistics – Advancements in Planning

The pharma industry often lags behind others when it come to advanced logistics planning – especially during the COVID-19 crisis. Short-term supply issues often dominate the conversation, meaning long-term concerns such as capacity utilisation and inventory turnover rates can become side-lined.

However, to ensure the long-term health of the industry, pharmaceutical logistics brands must turn their attention to these concerns and start planning for the future and how to better deliver products and services in a post-COVID world.

Planning Hurdles

When it comes to advancements in planning for pharma supply chains, we can break the situation down into five key challenges:

• Long lead times caused by a large and global supply chain.
• Capacity constraints brought about by a limited number of certified global supply sites
• Planning silos due to outdated traditional methods of working within functions
• Operating models which vary from country to country
• A large number of government-led tenders

Each of these elements is expansive enough that we could fill an entire article covering each one, but for now it’s enough to say that effective logistics planning means tackling each one in turn and gathering the right information and making your decisions based on real-world data.

Flexible Planning

In the modern environment of pharma logistics, there is a firm and definite need to update plans regularly and adopt a far leaner and more agile method of operations than would have previously been appropriate – especially given the current COVID-19 crisis.

There is no telling what the landscape will look like from one day to the next and those brands that want to thrive in this environment will need to keep the five points mentioned above in mind, as well as the mission and objectives of the business as a whole and craft your strategies around them.

“In recent years, the overall strategic thrust of operations planning programmes in pharmaceutical companies has shifted away from the delivery of customer service to the creation of a platform for robust decision making,” said Deloitte in a white paper on the subject. “Organisations will do well to remember that creating a world-class operations planning process is not just an exercise – it is a long-term journey towards transformation.”

Final Thoughts

It is ironic that, right now, pharmaceutical logistics planning has simultaneously never been more important and never been more challenging to achieve. One only needs glance at the three other stories featured in this very newsletter to understand many of the challenges being faced right now.

However, what these stories also show is that planning can win out in the end and with a little innovative spirit and a lot of hard work and collaboration, these hurdles can be overcome, and the pharmaceutical logistics industry can enter a new chapter where advanced planning becomes possible and successful.