Supply chain efficiencies using RFID in pharmaceutical industry

Abstract

Pharmaceuticals industry is known for its complex supply chain structure. The industry is going through a silent revolution and companies are trying to retain their competitive advantage by adopting newer technologies. There is a fierce struggle between the supply chain partners to squeeze others margins and have better bargaining power. FDA 1 has issued mandate for adopting RFID2 technology for improving the track and trace of products. Thus RFID is poised to change the industry interactions and threatens to change the competitive advantage of various players. This report attempts to study the pharmaceutical industry, RFID, its adoption in various industry sectors and applicability of RFID to pharmaceutical industry.This document is organized as follows. First section pertains to general understanding of pharmaceutical industry. Next Section talks about pharmaceutical supply chain, its drivers, and its in efficiencies and about factors affecting it. Third section looks at existing supply chain in USA and its points of vulnerability. Section IV looks at RFID as technology, implementation of RFID in various Industry sectors and FDA's initiative towards adopting it for pharmaceutical supply chain. Section V looks at implementation and impact of RFID in pharmaceutical supply chain. We then suggested a roadmap that this industry is expected to follow and drew the phases in which various players shall implement RFID. Then we looked at various challenges that may be encountered and studied how big players are reacting to for adopting RFID in pharmaceutical supply chain.