With the global nature of the pharmaceutical and medtech industry, as well as the size and scope of the companies operating in the field, the supply chain is one of the most complex in the world.
Continually improving this supply chain, along with ensuring safety, is a key focus for pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers as the ability to consistently and predictably deliver medicines is necessary for retaining customers and remaining competitive.
This will become increasingly challenging - as scientific advances move the industry from a one-size-fits-all approach to care, to one of segmentation and personalization, supply chains will also have to evolve.
In an effort to seek out new opportunities for growth, pharmaceutical companies are also focusing more on emerging markets. Countries that were traditionally small volume export markets are becoming areas of substantial investment, with organizations pushing toward global inventory management systems to help ensure that each region is serviced with as little overhead as possible.
As such, the pharmaceutical supply chain of the future will be built round flexibility, responsiveness and reliability, shifting from a stock based model to an order based model. But with such complexity involved, how can organizations effectively plan for the future of pharmaceutical supply chain management?
What are the benefits of simulation for supply chain planning?
Discrete event simulation software tools like SIMUL8 are increasingly used by drug and medical device manufacturers to model and assess risk-free changes to supply chain and logistics processes, no matter the complexity.
With simulation, organizations can experiment across a wide range of factors such as determining optimum locations for warehousing and other facilities, determining storage capacity, evaluate picking, packing and dispatch methods, assessing staffing requirements and more.
As simulation is highly visual, any bottlenecks in the logistics network can quickly be highlighted and recommendations for improvements can be thoroughly assessed to drive decision making.
