Optimising the Pharma Supply Chain

Getting stock just right

Offering the right service level has always been one of the main objectives of supply chains: even more so for the pharmaceuticals industry. Stock shortages can lead to many life-and-death situations. While expecting 100% availability, supply chain leaders understand that this is neither an achievable nor beneficial target to aim for.

Given the risk of obsolescence and cost of holding inventory, holding excess stock can have a hugely adverse impact on profit margins and unnecessarily tie up valuable working capital. As a result, there is a need to balance service with working capital and operational inventory cost.

To provide the desired service level while protecting against fluctuations in demand, the correct buffer or safety stock must be calculated for every product. Slimstock’s inventory optimization solution, Slim4, has powerful capabilities that enable businesses to continuously optimise inventories every day through:

• Automatically applying service levels based upon ABC and the business rules in place.
• Dynamically recalculating safety stock based on fluctuations in demand and lead times
• Taking into account delivery times, optimal order quantities, shelf lives and order frequencies

The right strategy for every phase

Launching a new pharmaceutical product into the market can cost billions of dollars and time in research and development. Technological advancements, a globally competitive environment, and an ever-changing regulatory world mean that life cycle management must be taken seriously. This is so that proactive and preventive actions can be taken sooner.

Effective Product Lifecycle Management is all about adopting the right strategy at every phase. However, given that no two product lifecycles are ever the same, inventory levels must be managed carefully to maximise availability during the introduction, growth, and mature phases while minimising waste because of shelf life expiration. Slim4 helps businesses stay ahead of product lifecycles by:

• Applying business rules to adopt either a defensive or aggressive approach during the launch phase that fits the company overall strategy
• Remaining responsive by automatically establishing a forecast after initial sales of new items
• Optimising margins and inventory costs for mature items
• Notifying planners when sales start to fall at the end of the product lifecycle
• Gaining insight into different phase-out scenarios and decreasing inventory levels accordingly

How to get started?

Given the market size and growth of the industry, it is surprising how businesses in this sector still depend on manual inventory systems. Considering the complexities of pharmaceutical inventories, manually tracking and making decisions based on gut feelings are bound to lead to errors. To gain the insights required to balance service and cost, supply chain teams need a more sophisticated and data-driven inventory solution.

Founded in 1993 and with more than 1,000 customers globally, Slimstock is without doubt the market leader in inventory optimization. Let us help you reach your inventory planning goals to get the right stock at the right place and at the right time. To learn more about our software, click here to find out more about how our solution can help you.

1 https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/consumer/pharmaceutical-exports-a-rare-bright-spot-for-singapore-economy