Vitaly Glozman, partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers, outlines the current state and future of supply-chain operations in the biopharmaceuticals industry, with an eye toward achieving both short- and long-term goals.

On July 17, a wide range of third-party products on Amazon showed special pricing: one cent. The pricing glitch was, yet again, caused by some third-party integration and a coding error.

Performance metrics for warehouses and distribution centers have steadily improved since 2003, when the Warehousing Education and Research Council first conducted its annual "DC Measures" study, says Joe Tillman, senior researcher at Supply Chain Visions and co-author of the study. Moreover, the gap has significantly narrowed between best-in-class companies and those lower on the performance scale, he says.

Quality is an everyday conversation on the manufacturing floor. Performance measures such as first-pass yield, reject rates, and scrap and rework are displayed on white boards at cells and assembly lines, ruthlessly analyzed and targeted for improvement. Quality tools abound.

Mike Cleland, vice president of NorthHighland, discusses what biotech and pharma companies need to do to comply with new regulations for tracking products throughout the supply chain.

Thirty-six percent of all targeted attacks (58 per day) during the last six months were directed at businesses with 250 or fewer employees, according to the June 2012 Intelligence Report from Symantec. The figure was 18 percent at the end of December 2011.

Accenture has announced a management consulting contract with Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries for a project to improve food supply capabilities in natural disasters and emergencies.