4 min reading time

Over the years, a number of trucking, shipping, and delivery companies have asked me how they can get a foot in the door of medical device companies.

And this week a group member asked, “What do the top medical device companies do to warehouse their inventory? Is it in-house or outsourced? What are key drivers that are considered in adopting a warehouse strategy?”

I asked group member Michelle Kingsbury from Layer Saver (she has frames that allow for double stacking) and she advised, “Many medical device companies use third-party logistics (3PL) companies to warehouse their inventory.” A pain point for device companies is shipping their product in half-empty trucks because historically there’s been no way to stack one pallet on top of another. (Her patented frames solve that.)

Michelle added, “It really is a function of what the device company’s strength is. For example, many companies hire contract manufacturing firms to produce, warehouse, and ship product.”

“And as firms consolidate, they inherit 3PL arrangements. At some point, they have to consolidate operations around a select few 3PLs or bring everything in house, which is less likely.”

We have many transportation and logistics experts in the group so I hope this will be a robust conversation.

How do you decide whether to get a facility large enough to store your own product versus outsourcing?

If it’s a function of how much volume you do, what is the tipping point to move to a third-party logistics firm?

And are there companies who do 100 percent of their volume shipping directly to stocking distributors?

Thanks for your inputs and for more on Michelle’s product, see http://layersaver.com

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UDI for the European Union

As the US races ahead with the UDI regime, the EU is still waiting for clarification on the expected requirements and what manufacturers need to do in order to comply. The release of the Medical Device Regulation (MDR) has provided some insight however, uncertainty still remains regarding the European UDI landscape.

Pharma IQ spoke to industry experts regarding the key hurdles for which the market should brace. The majority agreed on data management with the EU UDI regime as the likely outcome.

Here is a free ebook on the Data Complexities with the EU UDI Regime: http://medgroup.biz/EU-UDI

The eBook will help you make methodolical and evidence based approaches to avoid wasting resources on implementing the wrong plan, with insight into:
• Addressing regulatory compliance challenges in the regional and global market
• Strengthening regulatory infrastructure
• Providing a single, globally harmonised system for positive identification of medical devices in the supply chain

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Discussions

Are CLINICAL DATA valid if not obtained according to local legislation?

NRTL sign on a medical device in the USA

Does a medical device need a medical grade computer?

Medical device innovation comes from small companies?

Electronic IFU : no additional cost for printed IFU?

Is my Software a Medical Device?

Who do you reach for a translation task?

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Make it a great week.

Joe Hage
Medical Devices Group Leader

P.S. Our free webinar on patents is today. See http://medgroup.biz/check-patent to register or to get the replay and slides.

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Michelle Springhorn Kingsbury
Transportation Supply Chain Logistics provider of innovative shipping solutions
Hi Jim, true the trucks have areas where you can create temporary floors ( or layers)but you can’t do that until you get to the dock, they aren’t adjustable so if your packaging changes you are locked into their” temporary floor sizes” they are also manually attached and if they are not placed into the system correctly they can fall out and create damage or hurt someone. Our frames are adjustable ( by forklift) with 12-13 different placements, they can be preloaded which reduces material handling and speeds up your loading process. They eliminate the need for dunnage and eliminate damage. Check us out we are real easy to use and we don’t need to be for every problem but we do like your worst lane. We can help save money!

Hunter Fleetwood
Director of Sales at GlobalMed Logistix
When you’re thinking about “what do TOP medical device companies do” you’re most likely referring to the largest companies in the industry. The majority of these companies utilize both in-house and outsourced operations solutions that vary from type of device and sales channel / supply chain.

Where it can get very interesting is with med device startups. You have created an innovative product and you’ve hired a VP of sales to generate revenue but now you have to figure out how you can get your devices out into the field. Do you warehouse and distribute the devices yourself? If so, you’ll need, at a minimum:
– an operations manager / team
– a quality director
– an ERP to manage your financials, your incoming /outgoing orders and your inventory
– a shipping service (FedEx, UPS) that can give you a good discount (discounts are based on volume)
– a COO to manage all of these different moving parts
– product specific storage requirements
– and much more
SOLUTION: www.gmlx.us.com

Rich Hall
Senior Leadership | Sales, Distribution, Service, P&L | Building Success
www.hssone.com

Louis Coenders
Sr. logistics supply chain expert. Interim management, project & procurement consultant. Helping businesses to deliver.
direct shipping of parcel or pallet shipments from US to European distributors is not a winning European business strategy: it’s too expensive, too slow and involves too much (customs, vat and duties) complications. An outsourced warehouse in Europe eliminates those issues and increases service towards European customers which results in more sales turnover and lower overall logistics costs. Besides that an outsourced warehouse is a low risk investment and doesn’t require large working capital investments opposed to having an own warehouse facility. Last but not least: outsourcing makes fixed costs variable. Hope this contributes to this interesting discussion.

Huseyin Luleci
Owner, Urolog Andromed Tıbbi Cihazlar
Oç

Andy Legut
Vice President of Sales North America
Www.flexqube.com

Lingesh Babu
Visionary Entrepreneur in Pharmaceutical, Surgical, Medical devices, Optical, Electricals & Automoblies, Food & FMCG
Hi how about ISO very

Tal Yoreh
Product Marketer
Not a warehousing expert, but, whether you decide to get a large facility or to outsource warehousing, one thing that helps (as we all know) is to lower inventory levels. Some intelligent device manufacturers accomplish this by using their embedded software to control hardware features and reduce product variants. When that’s done, the tipping point to move to a third-party logistics firm can completely change.

James (Jim) Dent
Manufacturing Validation Engineer at DePuy Synthes Companies
Interesting! I’ve worked with several trucking/transport companies that can easily place a temporary floor above the first pallet as the load pallets, allowing two layers of pallets without stacking them on each other. The floor panels secure to the metal rails along the side walls of the trailers.

Frankie Figeac
Purchasing Manager at Telecare Corporation
www.RKLogisticsGroup.com