Prioritizing Technology Upgrades in a Multi-Client Warehouse Environment
As industry demand grows and client business evolves, it’s the role of the solution provider to be able to quickly respond to accommodate their growth. MD Logistics accomplishes this by pinpointing key upgrades.
THE CHALLENGE
Within the life sciences and pharmaceuticals industries, the demand for cGMP-compliant, state-of-the-art warehousing space has grown immensely over the past decade. The implementation of the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) and the need for serialization of product has created a bigger demand for solution providers to be able to handle larger volumes of data than ever before.
As the industry evolves in such a short amount of time, the challenge for solution providers becomes how to prioritize upgrades to their technology offerings in order to accommodate client needs and industry demands.
THE SOLUTION
As a third-party logistics provider, MD Logistics provides warehousing and fulfillment services to clients within the life sciences and pharmaceuticals industries. With nearly 30 years of experience as a 3PL within these industries, the team at MD Logistics has witnessed, first hand, the changes the industry has undergone in the past decade.
Understanding that in order to continue to offer best-in-class solutions, evolving with their clients’ supply chains and the industry is imperative. As technology and business processes become less efficient, they must be upgraded. But, how do you prioritize which upgrades to make?
Client Buy-in. The MDL leadership and operations teams conduct regular client business meetings to discuss current initiatives and future business growth. Meeting regularly ensures the MDL team remains ready to anticipate client growth with enough time to respond in an appropriate manner. An upgraded smart conveyor system was born out of a need to absorb rapid client growth for the MDL team. This conveyor system enables the operations team to reduce touches to product and realize increased throughput, allowing the MDL team to handle current business and scale to accommodate future need.
Operational Improvements. By adding finger scanners, collaborative robots, and pick-to-light systems, MDL was able to bring increased efficiency across multiple warehouse environments. This was done by reducing training time, which led to higher employee retention, and minimizing unnecessary walking to and from pick zones, which allowed employees to remain actively engaged in outbound order processing. These investments also created more seamless pick processes by utilizing finger scanners and collaborative technologies, thus eliminating the need to use a larger RF device. All three of these investments led to lower picking errors and higher throughput for clients.
Industry Regulations. The DSCSA regulation created the need to be able to store large amounts of serialized data throughout the supply chain. With the volumes of data now being handled on a daily basis by 3PLs, a robust warehouse management system (WMS) and track and trace serialization tool are required. The MD Logistics team not only had to ensure they had a WMS solution in place, but also had an appropriate data storage solution to ensure they were able to handle the large amounts of data which now had to be captured.
Warehouse upgrades are a necessary expense for 3PLs who want to remain relevant within the industry. Knowing which upgrades to prioritize over others is imperative.
If you are looking for a leading 3PL provider within the life sciences and pharmaceuticals industry, reach out to the MD Logistics team today.
To learn more:
[email protected]
317-838-8900
www.mdlogistics.com