Roundtable: The Future of Healthcare Logistics in Europe

“The Future of Healthcare Logistics in Europe” was the motto of the roundtable event at which arvato services healthcare welcomed more than 20 participants to the offices of Bertelsmann in Berlin in early November.

The event and the subsequent discussion focused on business strategies and operational distribution solutions in response to changing requirements and market trends.

The international group of participants was comprised of supply chain managers from international companies active in the area of medical technology, as well as experts from the academic world and consulting.

The key topic of the event and starting point for further discussion was the presentation of the report. Since outsourcing of distribution will become more important as a consequence of expected developments, Professor Richard Wilding of the Cranfield School of Management U.K. underscored the importance of partnership management in this context. As Prof. Wilding explained, in the future, successful management of the increasingly complex supply chain will require transparent processes based on a trusting partnership between companies and service providers.

Jef Herrmann gave a practical example. In his presentation, the distribution manager at Beckman Coulter, a manufacturer of diagnostic resources, described an example of successful cooperation: the build-up of regional distribution centres and the takeover of operational processing by arvato services healthcare. Using the example of the central replacement parts warehouse in Zaventem (Brussels), he described the advantages of collaboration. These include increased efficiency along the value chain and consolidation of European stocks, with the result that replacement parts are available overnight in Western European countries (including the UK). In addition, it was possible to maintain or even improve the previous solution’s order cut-off times for all markets.

Other topics that were discussed in depth in the subsequent roundtable discussions and at the informal get-together, included following concrete approaches to distribution as part of intensified collaboration among manufacturers: multi-user solutions, possibilities for increasing transparency in the value chain, and ways of setting companies apart using integrated supply chain solutions.