JAS’ webinar was one of the most anticipated webinar series for pharma and healthcare logistics.

Merck & Co (known as MSD outside of North America), Sonoco ThermoSafe, and JAS are all three very different companies, but they gathered together on February 22, 2022, to discuss the coming era of pharma and healthcare logistics. Moderated by David Bang, EVP Pharma & Healthcare at JAS, the panel consisted of David Komjati, Director Logistics Transformation at Merck & Co, Ben VanderPlas, Director of Engineering and R&D at Sonoco ThermoSafe, and Graeme Robinson, EVP Operations and Product at JAS.

Major disruptions are followed by an accelerated increase or decrease of specific policies, technologies, practices, and even human behaviors. As we are at the pivot point in between the last two years of pandemic and the next years of recovery, the panelists shared how they see the breakdown of the barriers to respond to lack of visibility into inventory status, location, and production process for pharma and healthcare products across the entire ecosystem. Also, practically speaking, we must deal with the upfront challenges such as congestion, capacity, labor shortage, supply shortage, etc. that are expected to continue in 2022 and well into 2023.

Merck & Co has been in the forefront of transformative development using IoT devices, clouds, and other technologies for some time and will share what the next evolution will be at Merck & Co. Sonoco ThermoSafe, from research and engineering perspectives, is working on numerous projects that have themes of sustainability, autonomy, real-time, and integration as well and added nicely how a company like Sonoco ThermoSafe has been navigating so far and is planning to adapt to a new norm.

JAS, as a global logistics provider connecting many dots with data and physical touches, has critical roles to play in the coming years and shared how it is preparing for future disruptions based on lessons learned and how it is reimagining the world of pharma and healthcare logistics in the next few years to come, closely collaborating with customers and partners.

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Under the theme of “Navigating the pharma and healthcare supply chain in these unprecedented times”, JAS recently conducted an important webinar to bring its customers and industry partners together to project the way forward.

Over 30 pharma and healthcare companies representing pharmaceuticals, medical devices, diagnostics, and consumers gained practical and non-sugarcoated insights from this JAS webinar. Topics ranged from the current ocean freight situation to various digital topics - especially centered around transparency, visibility, and security.

“I don’t even look at this as a new norm, but maybe we need to pay attention and have renewed focus on supply chain of pharma and healthcare.”, said Jim Fries, CEO Rx-360, keynote speaker for the event.  Jim’s inspirational and encouraging words were the perfect segue to the subsequent panel discussions.  

His key messages were:

• Despite different views on the pharma and healthcare supply chain, we all need to understand that, for patient safety, everyone plays a part like a domino effect.
• Think about where you fit and where others fit into supply chain security and integrity and bring them together.

Moderated by Dina Bunn, VP, Customer Experience Pharma & Healthcare at JAS, the first panel discussion was joined by Hermann Ude, Chairman of the Supervisory Board at Transporean, Saravan Kumar, Co-Founder and CEO at MaxQ, Alexis McCubbin, VP Customer Solutions & Strategic Initiatives EMEA at JAS, and Tom Madzy, CIO at JAS.  

Here are some of the memorable remarks from the panelists:

• Ude: “It’s not carrier or forwarder against shipper or the other way around, but it’s about putting things together and creating value against massive inefficiency.”
• Kumar: “We are starting to see that the barriers are coming down and pharma and healthcare companies want to make sense out of data coming from many different sources.”
• McCubbin: “Through digitalization, you can meet some of those regulations and find manufacturing efficiency to address cost pressure.”
• Madzy: “Data is not siloed by nature, but the use of data is siloed by its nature. We are combating it by putting all data into a central data lake.”

The second panel was on ocean freight, moderated by Frank Cascante, SVP Global Sales Pharma & Healthcare at JAS.  The panelists were Bill Duggan, North American Advisor at Eskesen Advisory, Nico Puttfarken, Manager Reefer Products at Hapag-Lloyd, Unai Gallstegi, Director Trade Management Latin America at JAS, and Jesper Jepsen, Director Ocean Freight Americas at JAS.  

Here are the highlighted comments by the panelists:

• Duggan: “One of the biggest challenges now is that dry container prices went up significantly while the reefer container did not catch up, causing reefers being used as dry containers to meet the demand.”
• Puttfarken: “We are enhancing our transparency capabilities such as creating visibility to show power-off times, etc.”
• Gallstegi: ”What we have seen so far is that some countries like Panama, Uruguay, and Chile have processes to move containers around faster than other countries in the region, which is a good sign.”
• Jepsen: “The big challenge also comes after the container has arrived and getting it delivered with redundancy and backup plans.”

Along with 26 GDP (Good Distribution Practice) certificates, “My Commitment” posters are being signed by executives and team members and will visibly be displayed in the lobbies of 26 branches, 17 country headquarters, 4 regional headquarters, and 1 global headquarters.
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With short sentences, only 6 bullet points, and plain languages, these statements were birthed from the bottom up, not a top-down corporate mandate, through surveys and interviews with over 100 JAS members all around the world from all levels and functions.
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The poster’s first bullet point is about a local and personal connection with JAS’ customers in any location, because JAS is easy to deal with, acting like a good old freight forwarder but performing as a global GDP certified logistics provider.  And the middle part of the poster primarily focuses on people’s knowledge, investment in digital, infrastructure, and vendor management. The last two points sum up precisely why we do what we do, and how JAS will behave.
There are three primary reasons why this simple poster is more than a piece of paper but a powerful foundation for JAS’s Quality Management System (internally also known as JAS Business Management System):

1. JAS’ vision is to be the best quality logistics provider for pharma and healthcare industry, and this “My Commitment” poster embodies what that means “personally”. That’s why each sentence starts with “I”.
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2. This emphasizes that JAS Pharma & Healthcare is primarily about empowering and investing in its branches and countries.
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3. It also clearly guides what JAS’ priorities are, which helps the organization stay in the zone it will add the most value to its customers.
   The management reviews and corresponding KPI reviews are also aligned with many of these statements on “My Commitment” poster for accountability and continuous improvement.

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The JAS Pharma & Healthcare training program has now 15 courses and will be adding 5 more courses by the end of the year, covering everything from core compliance courses to practical desk and floor level knowledge.  So far, nearly 200 JAS employees have taken the courses and many of them have achieved “Pharma & Healthcare Catalyst” certification meaning they’ve now demonstrated sufficient and broad-enough knowledge on the key pharma and healthcare topics related to their responsible area.

These individuals are from all key functions at JAS: sales, product, operation, quality, process, HR, finance, etc.  

The lineup of faculty members is impressive too.  With more than a combined 150 years of industry experiences in all aspects of logistics and pharma and healthcare manufacturing and R&D, these coaches are not just teaching knowledge but are contagious with passion. Most importantly, the training program is designed to promote constant learning instead of simply a one-time annual thing to be checked off to remain compliant.

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Since these training courses are so relevant and useful even to pharma and healthcare customers, there is a plan to bring this learning to pharma and healthcare customers and partners.

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Some of the unique characteristics of the JAS Pharma & Healthcare training program are:

• Each training session is no more than 45 minutes.
• Each topic has a knowledge check list that can be used as a personal reminder day-to-day (the typical adult retains 20% or less of what they learned after 48 hours).
• Knowledge test via an LMS (Learning Management System).
• Those trainings should be linked to Skills and Competences of Personal Career Profiles in HR system – tied to job profiles, talent management, and career paths
• Training effectiveness and continuous improvement cycle.
• Make the learning experience fun!

Next steps

• Multi-languages: Spanish version of some of the training courses were introduced and we will work on many other languages.
• Free trainings will be available via a common learning platform like Coursera, Udemy, and LinkedIn to pharma and healthcare customers (logistics, supply chain, quality, procurement professionals and executives) and partners.

“I believe I will be able to help my customers with the best service for their specific products, combining accuracy, transparency, and proactive intervention at the same time offering cost efficiency.”, said Ashley Barron, Trade Manager Ocean Services of USA, a Catalyst of pharma & healthcare logistics industry.

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JAS Worldwide is pleased to announce the appointment of Dina Bunn as Vice President Customer Experience, Pharma & Healthcare. The addition of Bunn will further strengthen the JAS Pharma & Healthcare leadership team. Holding leadership roles in the air cargo and freight forwarding industries for more than thirty years, Bunn brings to JAS a broad international background in finance, quality management, customer service, and IT service delivery – with particular expertise in logistics for temperature-sensitive healthcare products.

Some of Bunn’s notable successes include spearheading the development of an industry-leading cold chain logistics platform, as well as managing a global project to implement a newly established temperature control service offering for a large logistics provider. A certified IATA instructor and quality auditor, Bunn is passionate about customer experience, employee engagement, and operational efficiency.

Bunn’s joining JAS further solidifies the company's strategic direction for the pharma and healthcare industry, which is very well rooted in its mantra, ‘People Make The Difference.’

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