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249 Results

Type: Article

Section: Logistics > Traceability/Serialization

Robotics/Automation

Lessons learned: Project and vendor management

Here are some key lessons learned from those who have conducted live supply chain pilot tests. This article focuses on lessons learned about project and vendor management.

January 19, 2014

How GS1 can help with pilot testing

GS1 US offers a 2105 Readiness Pilot program that offers a simple approach for initiating and managing pilots.

January 18, 2014

Labeling/Printing

Preflighting your supply chain pilot

Once you start shipping live product as part of a pilot test, it is not easy to revert back into test mode.

January 18, 2014

Pharmaceuticals

Getting started with pilot tests

Once you’ve identified your goals, you should start giving thought to selecting one or more sites, lines, SKUs, vendor technologies, and trading partners for your pilot test(s).

January 17, 2014

Pharmaceuticals

Avoid these EPCIS interoperability pitfalls

One of the greatest challenges facing the pharmaceutical supply chain is hooking up multiple ERP systems and business applications across the supply chain, spanning the manufacturer, contract packager, wholesaler/distributor, and pharmacies. Ensuring interoperability of the data across the supply chain is a challenge, even if all parties adopt GS1’s EPCIS standard.

January 12, 2014

Pharmaceuticals

Issues with master data

Trading partners with whom you exchange EPCIS event data will request what is known as “supply chain master data” about your products, company, and locations that will be referenced in EPCIS events. This data takes two basic forms.

January 11, 2014

Pharmaceuticals

Case study: Contract packager builds its own serialization solution

CMO/CPOs faced with a global client base, obligations to meet multiple and varied country regulations, and the insane complexity of integrating with multiple customers would do well to heed the story of Almac Pharma Services.

January 10, 2014

Pharmaceuticals

Five implementation tips for CMO/CPOs

One of the biggest challenges that CMO/CPOs will face when it comes to serializing their lines is how to sort through the complexity of integrating their internal serialization solution at the line and plant level with their customers’ business systems.

January 10, 2014

Pharmaceuticals

Determining goals and metrics for pilot testing

There are two schools of thought when it comes to pilot testing.

January 10, 2014

Traceability/Serialization

Contract manufacturing and contract packaging strategic considerations

It’s become a fact of life that the North American pharmaceutical industry, while still firmly rooted in manufacturing of its own products, also makes heavy use of outsourcing to contract manufacturing/contract packaging organizations.

January 8, 2014

Robotics/Automation

Line- and plant-level software implications

While GS1’s Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS) protocol standardizes the way serialization data is transmitted between trading partners, there is no such standard for communicating between a company’s internal serialization solution and its Manufacturing Execution System (MES), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems such as SAP, and ERP modules that handle serial number management (such as Aii in the case of SAP). And therein lies the rub.

January 8, 2014

Pharmaceuticals

Preventing counterfeit e-pedigree data

Although many people may think of serialization and e-pedigree as the industry’s final checkmate in the counterfeit arms race, nothing could be further from the truth.

January 7, 2014

Robotics/Automation

How to avoid the leading zero issue

There are a number of layers of software systems involved in serialization: line- and plant-level serialization systems, ERP-level serial number management systems, and network-facing EPCIS systems.

January 7, 2014

Pharmaceuticals

Impact on wholesaler/distributors, pharmacies, clinics, and hospitals

Wholesaler/distributors face an incredible challenge. They will receive data from hundreds of suppliers—and must disseminate it to thousands or tens of thousands of customers—and have to figure out how to manage it all.

January 6, 2014

E-pedigree models and the U.S. drug supply chain

The debate over pedigree regulatory models in the U.S. pharmaceutical supply chain often centers on how much data for each package of drugs needs to be moved between trading partners as those drugs physically move through the supply chain.

January 6, 2014

Pharmaceuticals

Impact on production/operations workflows

Pharmaceutical companies are finding that the cost to upgrade a typical packaging line for serialization runs at around $1 million, give or take. With that level of investment, it’s only natural to focus on the equipment and engineering changes involved in reconfiguring the line itself.

January 5, 2014

Pharmaceuticals

Questions to ask your CMO/CPO about serialization

While the focus of many pharmaceutical manufacturers is on their own internal infrastructure, it’s prudent for manufacturers to begin surveying their contract manufacturing and contract packaging organizations for serialization readiness.

January 5, 2014

Business process considerations for mixing serialized with non-serialized shipments

You might need to implement special business processes for handling serialized versus non-serialized shipment processing with your supply chain partners during piloting.

January 5, 2014

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