Press Report

Professionalization of transport management by Novartis Pharma AG

(pharmind 07.2006) The cooperation within global supply chains is characterised by a large amount of work involved in the coordination of processes and by the necessity for controlling these processes. This is especially true for the planning, control and clearing of cross-locational and cross-company goods transports. The transport management belongs in many companies to those areas where processes and controlling have only been automated marginally. Ever-increasing requirements for the complete process control especially during the transport of sensitive goods but also compliance-requirements which become more and more relevant for many companies are the reason for increasing the level of automation in this area sustainably. Modern supply chain execution solutions which are based on Internet-technologies can take on a linking function between the participating companies in this field. Insurmountable trenches caused by the use of different IT-systems had been a problem here for many years. The Novartis Pharma AG, Basel (Switzerland), has been one of the first companies in this sector which has professionalised its transport management in this manner. Thus, the manufacturer of patented pharmaceuticals and generic medicaments has not only for the first time synchronised the cross-locational and cross-company information flow with the corresponding goods flow but the company has also integrated the involved controlling and clearing functionalities. The aim of the integration of the various tasks was above all the increase in the automation of the transport management and the significant enhancement of transparency in the freight cost management. The standard software solution logistics-server® by inet-logistics was chosen for this task. This solution assumes a classical intermediary function. All relevant information gets bundled and provided to all partners who participate in the logistics process in real time.

By means of this medium Novartis now has the possibility, for example, to organise all transport orders electronically, to transfer all necessary documents in the proper form and send the relevant data electronically to the service providers. The architecture of the server is open. This means that, if necessary, new companies can be integrated at all times. The individual companies which participate in the transport process can access the system via a web-browser and exchange the necessary information with the central server in this way. The use of the central server soon proved its worth in practice. Especially the seamless interplay with the SAP-system which manages stocks contributes essentially to the efficiency improvement because correct and complex transport information and accounting records can directly be exported from and imported into SAP.