Pharmaceutical companies have historically operated as conglomerates of independent companies with poor visibility and coordination between departments. Lack of cross-silo process coordination and tools has led to a number of challenges:
Sales & Marketing
- Difficulty to measure forecast versus actual sales and bias at the individual contributor level
- Difficulty to get real-time alerts when key channels or markets are varying from plan significantly
- Inability to monitor customer service and supply side issues to know when there is a problem
- Frustrated sales managers
Operations
- Silos within primary manufacturing, lab, and secondary manufacturing inhibit visibility and extend the order-to-cash cycle time
- Long cycle times and imbalanced inventory mix contribute to inventory expiration risk
- Lack of precise models of the manufacturing process contribute to hedging and guesswork regarding causes of variability in plan versus actual production performance
- Batch and queue behavior in the lab and compliance departments contributes to lead-time and throughput variability for manufacturing
- Multiple disparate sources of demand (commercial, clinical, samples, qualifications, etc.) complicates the schedulers job of capacity allocation and production planning.
- Reactive fire-fighting behavior instead of pro-active analysis and decision-making
Research
- With spreadsheets everywhere and little master data management to facilitate researcher coordination with production schedulers, planning a NCE/NPI launch can burn precious days in time to market
- The flexibility of spreadsheets are a blessing and a curse when it comes to planning new product demand, planning new capacity or technology introduction, scheduling clinical supply inventory builds interspersed with cGMP commercial production, and other touch points in the supply chain planning arena
- Productivity loss, delays in time to market, margin erosion
Many companies have launched lean six sigma, SCOR benchmarking, or other process improvement initiatives to address some of these ills. But often these
benefits are short-lived because of a lack of tools to reinforce and sustain the process improvements. And the difference between median performers and best-in-class is significant, as documented in a recent supply chain benchmark survey by PRTM.
Best-in-class performers enjoy:
- Higher inventory turns and optimized inventory mix
- Higher forecast accuracy and customer service
- High throughput rates, shorter lead-times, lower cash-to-cash cycle time
- Better visibility across the supply chain from sales through operations, to new product introduction
The Picaso™ Solution for Pharmaceuticals
The Picaso™ Solution provides pharmaceutical companies with an enterprise-wide suite of tools that offers many features and benefits, including:
- Full Compliance with Government Regulations
through extended documentation and reporting
- Reduced Time and Cost for Bringing Products to Market
through extended visibility which helps you optimize the manufacturing process and reduce the cost of goods sold through optimized production
- Visibility Over the Global Supply Chains
including visibility to key performance indicators (KPIs), real-time inventory projections for multiple SKUs and updated impact analysis of collaborative forecasting
- Increased Customer Service Levels
through real-time analysis tools for Available-to-Promise (ATP) / Capable-to-Promise (CTP) data reporting as well as comprehensive metrics for demand history
- Automated Functionality to Optimize Supply Chain Operation
including maintaining optimal inventory levels and support for time-phased safety-stocks
Deployed in a suite of interconnected modules that incorporate WAM's industry-leading supply chain methodology, the WAM Picaso™ Solution allows supply chain executives to manage every aspect of their planning operation, including:
- Collaborative Demand Management and Forecasting
- Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP)
- Inventory Targeting and Optimization
- Distribution Planning and Scheduling
- Production Planning & Scheduling
- Supply Chain Management and Optimization
- Optimal Policy Setting
- Raw Materials Planning
- Available-to-Promise (ATP) / Capable-to-Promise (CTP) Order Fulfillment Analysis
Pharmaceutical Industry Benchmarking
WAM Systems conducts an ongoing series of benchmarking surveys for companies throughout the process manufacturing industry in an effort to assess the overall maturity of supply chain practices. The purpose of these surveys is to help each company compare its supply chain process maturity with that of its industry peers.
Each survey is composed of a telephone interview and final report--loaded with demographic and benchmarking data--and is kept confidential to the participating company. Companies find this analysis useful when there is a desire to confirm
what they perceive to be an industry gap within their current planning processes.
Pharmaceutical Industry Best-Practices
Process and Management Consulting
| The WAM-ID
Process™ is a concise yet thorough analysis of a company's
existing supply chain operation which is designed to help key executives evaluate
the potential for process and technology improvement in a format that
can build enterprise-wide consensus. |
Supporting WAM's Picaso™ Solution is its unparalleled industry supply chain consulting service, whose leading offering is a multi-faceted analysis and benchmarking study called the WAM-ID Process™.
By using this process, WAM has helped numerous companies discover real value, that can be
quantified and achieved through a tangible roadmap of process improvement and supporting technology implementation.
Learn more about the WAM-ID Process™ and how it can quickly and
easily be launched inside your company to address the concerns and
potential of your supply chain planning organization.
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About Us |
WAM Systems has been helping companies improve their supply chain operations since 1987. Contact us to discover how we can help your company reach its full potential.
+1 800-358-8305
Company Fact Sheet
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Process Analysis |
Successful process improvement begins with an assessment of your current operation. Our benchmarking and consulting services help define areas for improvement and create a roadmap for change.
Benchmarking
Process Improvement Roadmap
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