Over $1M a year saved on PDMA-compliant sample distribution

Cold Chain Logistics Parcel Cold chain Pharmaceutical & medical devices
Pharmaceutical sample distribution case study

WHO

Business model

A global pharmaceutical company shipping hundreds of thousands of samples each year throughout the United States, to practitioners and to its own sales representatives.

Industry

Pharmaceutical, under PDMA. The regulation sets the delivery rules before cost is even a consideration.

PROBLEM

What they felt

The company wanted to understand and optimize the different strategies in shipping samples to practitioners and sales representatives and ensure the highest compliance to regulations. It was also concerned about the amount of time sales reps were spending on sample inventory management.

What we found

Prior to Trans-solutions involvement, this client utilized a third party logistics provider to deliver all samples to sales representatives and practitioners. Deliveries were inconsistent, very costly and PDMA non-compliant. Cost savings was not the primary goal for this shipper, but like all companies they wanted a fair price from their transportation partners.

WHAT WE DID

Prep and analysis

An extensive assessment process that included confirming service and legal parameters for deliveries, documenting current freight costs and fees, and visiting the fulfillment operation and customers. An analytical baseline was created so that changes in service and cost could be accurately identified and calculated.

Execution

Trans-solutions engineered a delivery strategy that satisfied service and PDMA requirements while reducing transportation costs and inventory.

We went and looked

The assessment was not run from a spreadsheet. We visited the fulfillment operation and the customers receiving the samples, because the compliance requirements and the service failures only show up at the delivery point.

RESULTS

What they got

Over $1,000,000 in ongoing savings, and PDMA compliance restored

This project generated ongoing savings in excess of $1,000,000.

Compliance was the real win. The operation became PDMA compliant, inventory came under control, deliveries arrived on time, and sales reps went back to selling instead of managing sample inventory.

In a short amount of time, sales reps were focused on selling, inventory was under control and costs were down significantly.

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