Packaging, supply & logistics
supply chain network. Not to mention economic factors like widespread and damaging levels of inflation, and skilled labour shortages.
Each of the above presents its own set of complications, but for the medical device sector these difficulties risk delaying the development and adoption of what can often be vital medical interventions, ultimately risking patient’s health and well-being. “Delayed and cancelled elective surgeries, long lead times, significantly higher costs – this has been the unfortunate state of affairs,” said global consultancy firm FTI Consulting at the beginning of last year, as the world faced another uncertain 12 months. It added that Covid-19 had spared no industry, but that medtech was especially impacted, at a time when global healthcare needs had only increased. More specifically, the consultancy said: “Extensive and unprecedented supply chain disruptions have materialised and sustained over the last 30 months, including raw material shortages, labour challenges, sterilisation constraints, and concerns surrounding device security and cybersecurity.”
Agility is the watchword
Among the solutions the sector has been forced to adopt to counter these challenges are nearshoring or onshoring some of its manufacturing capacity. It has also developed and adopted an array of contingency plans to counter labour constraints and ever-increasing raw materials costs, and refined its distribution channels as part of a fundamental shift to supply chains that some believe will become the norm. Agility has been the watchword, and if you’re not able to be agile, you’re not operating at an optimum level or even on a level playing field.
Speaking at the University of Pittsburgh’s Supply Chain Management Symposium in March 2023, Johnson & Johnson’s Heidi Landry, chief procurement officer of enterprise supply chain, revealed the steps her organisation had taken to counter the impact of these challenges. She said they were working to better assess the risk faced and take the steps needed to maintain a “continuous supply base” and “enable global access to lifesaving medicines and equipment”.
For many organisations facing similar concerns, digitalisation and automation have led the way in this new age of supply complexity. “Digitalisation of the supply chain is happening, even though it’s not always visible,” explains smart and reusable packaging specialist Schoeller Allibert’s global product and IoT [internet of things] director Frederik Dejans. However, it has been said medtech lags behind other parts of industry that have embraced digitalisation through what’s known as ‘digital supply networks’ (DSN).
Medical Device Developments /
www.nsmedicaldevices.com
DSNs offer a host of benefits if employed correctly, including in logistics and distribution, warehouse and storage operations, inventory management and even in aftersales through device maintenance. Done via a network of sensors and the IoT technology, all supported by cloud-based systems, medtech companies have the ability to oversee their portfolio at every stage of its journey. The sensors can report on the performance and condition – including the environment – of a device; whether it’s in transit, being stored at a distribution facility or in a healthcare setting, or even in use. This is particularly important given the growing raft of environmental, social and governance regulations that require companies to trace all goods flowing through their supply chains. “IoT-based technologies deliver transparency and brand protection to businesses and consumers,” Dejans says.
But, he suggests, some are not utilising these technologies as best they could. “A lot of companies currently lack end-to-end supply chain visibility,” he warns, referring to all those involved in the supply chain having the capability to access insights and data on the movement of products – from source to the intended final destination – in real time. Referred to by some as the secret weapon that keeps supply chains humming, end-to-end visibility is revolutionising the way businesses oversee every stage of their supply chain, and the journey their products take along it. Employing it has been found to boost efficiencies, allowing for timely and accurate order fulfilment by swiftly and proactively mitigating potential issues – all supported by digital technology advances.
In a 2022 market report by McKinsey & Company, two-thirds (67%) of survey participants said they used digital dashboards to garner end-to-end oversight; but that means there is a significant cohort yet to harness this power – some of those will inevitably be associated with the medtech sector to some degree.
There are three crucial elements to a good end- to-end strategy: modes of transport, supply chain nodes, and all the stages in between – sometimes referred to as transitional phases. Of course, you can break a supply chain down further, but these are the broad components. Other parts of an end-to-end structure include finance, inventory and procurement, operations, quality control, and sales and aftersales.
“Where are the assets [packages]?” Dejans rhetorically questions, presuming the contemplations of his customers and anyone else whose business’s success rests on supply chains of some description. “Are they empty or full? Are there any temperature threshold anomalies? What
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