Robert Celeste, director of healthcare with GS1US, relates the group's efforts in establishing industry-wide standards for the life sciences sector.

Wayne McDonnell, director of pharma and life sciences advisory with PricewaterhouseCoopers, talks about the core fundamentals of supply-chain capabilities today, as well as PwC's latest "Pharma 2020" report.

Blake Johnson, consulting professor with Stanford University, details the value that companies can derive from supply-chain risk and flexibility management, and how sales and operations planning can help.

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.

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.