Lessons Learned from Winter Storm Impacting Pharma Supply Chain in Texas
The winter storm that hit Texas and parts of North America in February 2021 disturbed the distribution channels. It resulted in a disrupted pharma supply chain. How we respond to it and remain prepared for it matters.
The pharma supply chain is of prime importance in these times, especially when the world is trying to recover from the pandemic. Natural causes are known to create issues in the normal functioning of the supply chain sector. However, several steps can be taken to minimize the impact.
In order to be prepared for what’s to come, we need to understand how natural causes like winter storms have an impact on the supply chain. In this write-up, we focus our attention on the pharma supply chain in Texas and how winter storms affect it.
How Can Pharma Supply Chain Be More Resilient and Prepared for Such Adversity?
The pharma supply chain must keep a safety stock. Having stock visibility is equally important. Using efficient inventory and warehousing management tools helps manage the supply chain seamlessly. Yourway, based in Allentown, PA, uses client portals to allow easy access and management of the inventory.
Another important step would be to leverage the predictive models to help them understand the impact of such adversity on their business functioning. It would help them minimize the impact and deal with the situation adroitly.
Immediate Focus on Emergencies
One of the prime things that the 2021 winter storm taught us is that the prime focus should be on utilizing the existing inventory to meet the demands of the consumers. The immediate attention should be diverted to supplying the stocks to the areas with least to no inventory of medicines.
Also, it must be checked if the heavily impacted areas have sufficient pharmaceutical inventory to tackle emergencies. If not, then servicing them should be prioritized.
Dealing With Such a Crisis
Winter storms are not an everyday occurrence, but we have learned from the past that it is a reality, and the level of impact is extreme. The pharma supply chain sector must prepare itself to deal with such emergencies.
Various measures such as inventory planning, adopting agile inventory planning, moving the products nearer to the important distributors or consumers, etc., help the supply chain.
Pharma companies depend highly on the functioning of courier operators and parcel terminals. The pharma supply chain will likely be disturbed if its services are disrupted.
Final Thoughts
The times of natural adversities demand proactiveness from everyone. Natural causes are beyond our means of control, and we can only manage what we have the power to control. However, businesses such as pharma supply chains can learn from experience and prepare themselves to deal with a major crisis such as a winter storm.
Such incidents lead to a drop in the volumes, but it does not necessarily mean that customers would face shortages. If the supply chain is proactive, it can ensure that the sourcing of orders is done based on priority to meet the consumers’ demand.