How does route optimization benefit the pharmaceutical industry?
Nathan Palmer - November 19, 2021Through clinical trials and advanced research, the pharmaceutical industry has created life-saving drugs.
The global success of pharma products is determined by their transportation and storage. You can make a small error in logistics and lose your efforts to deliver the products to the correct customers.
Last-mile delivery services are an essential step in the transportation of pharmaceutical products. There are many complexities that a company must address when handling last-mile pharma deliveries.
- Cold-chain Pharma Products – Pharma supplies that need refrigeration
- Pharma supplies that are not refrigerated
- Driver shortage
- Distribution safety guidelines for different geographic areas
- Limitations on truck capacity
- Unique storage needs
- Security measures for emergencies
- Logistics lack of visibility
- Variations in temperature
- It is difficult to respond to urgent on-demand deliveries
- Traffic restrictions, etc.
The route optimization software is required to ensure that pharma supplies are delivered to the correct customer at the right moment. Route optimization software can increase productivity in your pharma supply chain. Learn how route optimization solutions can benefit the pharmaceutical sector in last-mile delivery.
Flexible delivery schedules:
Customers value flexibility and if they can be accommodated within their preferred time frame. They place orders for pharma supplies to be used in the future or as an emergency. On-time delivery is determined by the way you plan routes. Flexibility is a result of the traditional planning approach to routes.
Imagine you’re delivering medication and equipment to a nursing facility. You might need critical equipment or medicines urgently.
You must ensure that you provide pharma supplies to nursing homes inflexible and different time frames, regardless of whether they are urgent or negotiable. A lack of trust can be caused by even a slight delay in delivery. It is therefore important to have routes ready for unpredictable and on-demand delivery times.
How route optimization can help with flexible delivery times?
Increase visibility to manage security and safety threats
Visibility is crucial, regardless of whether it is a 3PL or a pharma business. Refrigerated trucks, driver awareness, and temperature control measures are all costly in pharma logistics. Pharma companies have no other options than technology to improve their end-to-end visibility and lower last-mile delivery costs.
The pharmaceutical industry needs to have end-to-end visibility powered by technology. In pharmaceutical Northwest haulage companies, last-mile delivery agents deal with temperature-sensitive medicines. Delivery delays or even small problems can cause the abandonment of pharma supplies.
How to route optimization can improve visibility in pharma logistics
Dynamic route optimization gives pharma companies real-time visibility to the location of their vehicles. It also provides insight into idle trucks. It gives fleet management and operations greater control.
Last-mile storage can reduce wasteful transport costs
Last-mile delivery agents are responsible for pharma transport. The Good Distribution Practice (GDP), guidelines should be followed for delivering pharma products.
Transport costs are high in the pharmaceutical industry. Refrigerated products require different storage conditions than non-refrigerated. Pharma products, unlike other goods such as books, electronics, and fashion, require extra care to maintain the right temperature until they reach their destination.
Transporting pharma products requires trucks that have Controlled Room Temperature (CRT), thermal blanketing, refrigerants, thermometers, and refrigeration.
Even with all the care and attention, some damage may still occur to pharma products. It is important to assess the damage. There is also a labor cost involved in analyzing the cause of the damage during pharma transport.
You need to move quickly due to storage safety regulations and unexpected on-demand orders. Delivery delays can have a significant impact on the quality and storage conditions of pharma supplies. Only take the most cost-effective and efficient route to travel fast.
Route optimization software allows you to find the fastest and most cost-efficient route for reaching your customers on time. It can automatically adjust the delivery routes to meet unexpected on-demand deliveries and ensure safe delivery. The increased visibility options allow for lower transportation costs without causing delays in the delivery of pharma products.
Even Workload distribution
Logistics is a major problem for the pharmaceutical industry. To ensure that pharma products are delivered securely, drivers in the pharmacy delivery process must be familiar with specific transport and storage requirements.
The Pharma industry is in dire need of skilled delivery personnel. The pharmaceutical industry needs a highly skilled delivery team to drive and manage the medicines. Drivers who have experience in last-mile pharmaceutical delivery can manage the consequences of the delivery process.
Most often, there are only a few drivers who can fulfill all delivery requests. The workload distribution is determined by the truck’s capacity limitations, as well as the driver shortage.
One cannot manage a fleet of vehicles manually when there are many complexities such as driver shortages, driver shortages, truck capacity, and on-demand deliveries. Logistic operations are more expensive when you hire more planning staff. Technology is the only way to make the last mile process in the pharmaceutical industry efficient and seamless.
How route optimization ensures even workload distribution?
Route optimization is useful because it automatically assigns work. It considers driver shortage, truck capacity, and traffic to determine the best route. It allocates pharma delivery times that are within the available resources and does not require any manual interference or unnecessary costs.
Conclusion
The pharmaceutical industry is focusing on its strengths in distribution and transportation. Route optimization technology helps to balance their urgent and usual deliveries. It also saves them fuel and labor costs. This allows them to maintain the quality of the last-mile deliveries.
Locus’ route planning software (Dispatcher), is effective for delivery agents working in the pharmaceutical industry. It allows logistics managers to easily assign routes and delivery times for pharma products. It will make your last-mile pharma operations more efficient.
Locus also offers FieldIQ for field sales professionals who sell to retail outlets. It allows field sales personnel who are traveling in the pharma industry to track their sales beats and Permanent Journey Plan (PJP) and engage maximum clients with a shorter travel time.
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