Andy Moses, senior vice president of global products with Penske Logistics, talks about the growing popularity of dedicated contract carriage - and offers a frank appraisal of the challenges that shippers and carriers face in today's uncertain economy.
With the Jan. 1 U.S. Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) lot-level traceability deadline now behind us, many pharmaceutical companies are turning their attention to full drug serialization. DSCSA requires that manufacturers mark packages with a product identifier, serial number, lot number, and expiration date by 2017. In that period, highly regulated packaging and distribution processes must be changed; physical equipment must be procured and operationalized; enterprise-wide IT must be implemented; and end-to-end serialization testing with supply chain partners must take place well in advance of the deadline to allow time for any necessary adjustments. Given these multi-faceted complexities, three years is an aggressive implementation time frame.
The boom in specialty pharmaceuticals is reshaping the pharmacy industry's market structure as 10 companies account for 70 percent of specialty pharmacy revenues, according to Adam J. Fein, CEO of the Drug Channels Institute and author of the study on pharmacy economics and the pharmaceutical supply chain.
The Centre on Regulation in Europe (CERRE) has published a series of studies designed to understand why competition in the European railroad industry has been successfully implemented in some cases but in others has led to a decline in the modal share for rail freight.
Three transportation industry groups, with support from the U.S. Federal Highway Administration, have formed the National Operations Center of Excellence.
Cuba is on the threshold of getting, potentially, a massive technology upgrade, thanks to a U.S. decision to ease economic sanctions. But this tiny island nation needs a lot of work.