Supply chain solutions for Ranbaxy

A case study on how the kinks in a pharma company's supply chain were ironed out by superior track-and-trace initiatives

Situation analysis

Ranbaxy is one of the leading multinational companies in India in the area of pharmaceuticals. It deals with large quantities of exports and imports of pharma products, and hence, required extensive warehousing facilities. It had to store its consignments and transport them by air, ocean or combination of both, ie. multi-modal transportation.

Key challenges

Ranbaxy had to face many challenges during the execution of its project. The main challenges faced by the company were—continuously maintaining critical temperature during storage and transportation of pharma products, maintaining the delivery schedules and meeting the deadlines. Besides this, other challenges were setting up of warehouses at important locations and distribution centres at various overseas and domestic locations by properly identifying them, ensuring compliance of norms set up by Food and Drug Administration (FDA), complying with all regulatory requirements such as documentation required for export and import and keeping track of the current position of the shipment dispatched by it.

Solution

To deal with these problems, Ranbaxy decided to make use of services provided by Aqua Logistics. Aqua was assigned the task of tracking and tracing the shipments. To accomplish this, it set up a warehouse located at a central location, which was at optimum distance from the ports. It also set up effective tie ups with air carriers to maintain cold chains and to improve transit times.

To transport generic products under optimum temperature conditions, Aqua provided cost-effective consol solution for LCL sea shipments. Further, Aqua provided consultancy on EXIM, which assisted in getting various licenses from DGFT and their various finalisations and closures as well as related customs formalities. It also provided locational implants for better co-ordination and to carry out mundane documentation procedures including overseas invoicing as well as EXIM documentation.

Results

With the help of services offered by Aqua, considerable improvement was achieved in the planning process and on-time delivery of goods. The company could accurately track and trace it so that it could plan for its future strategies. Due to tie-ups with air carriers, cold storage chains were maintained properly and it also reduced the

transit time taken by cargo from origin point to the final destination. The company could anticipate the number of days for which remaining inventory will last. Hence, it did not have to keep excessive stock of materials, which reduced the inventory carrying cost and also reduced the loss of goods lying unattended at warehouses for several days. It also controlled the transportation and administration cost. Besides this, it also led to reduction in costs associated with holding fixed assets for their warehousing and management. Ranbaxy was able to comply with the regulatory requirements as per norms set up by FDA. This resulted in easier flow and exchange of information between Ranbaxy and its trading partners.

(Source: CII Institute of Logistics)