How cross-company digital collaboration makes healthcare logistics more flexible and efficient.
As a rapidly growing healthcare equipment manufacturer, Sartorius is using the unique digital workflow functionality in Validaide to make its global logistics processes more flexible and efficient. This not only creates value for Sartorius but also for its global freight forwarding partners.
The planning of healthcare shipments requires close alignment between manufacturers and their logistics providers. Transport and packaging arrangements are documented in Standard Operating Procedures (SOP’s) and Lane Risk Assessments must be made for each transport route. All these documents must be edited, shared and approved by multiple business partners, resulting in lengthy processes with numerous manual activities and frequent communication. A process that mainly relied on emails and phone calls—until now.
Validaide platform digitalizes these manual activities with our unique multi-enterprise workflow functionality. Manufacturers, freight forwarders and carriers can now execute these cross-company processes faster and more effectively than ever before. All partners use the same data without having to worry about costly integrations. Executives at all partner organizations can monitor the status of processes.
"The Validaide Lane Manager with data-driven Lane Risk Assessment brings the planning of healthcare shipments to the digital age" comments Eelco de Jong, CEO and Co-founder of Validaide. "Cross-company collaboration and workflow management takes this to the next level by simplifying complex implementation projects, improving partner communication, and updating business partners automatically. The multi-enterprise implementation by Sartorius shows that people spend less time creating and updating documents and that companies have greater visibility and control. As consequence, new transport routes can be qualified faster, making transport and logistics more agile and efficient."
In 2021 Sartorius implemented the Validaide platform as a single, centralized, digital platform for all their Lane SOPs. The implementation enabled Sartorius to create and share SOPs with their forwarders, streamlining the data collection and approval process in a standardized digital format. Recently the company took the implementation of Validaide a step forward with the addition of data-driven Lane Risk Assessments for its temperature-sensitive shipments.
Freight forwarders such as Hellmann Worldwide Logistics and JAS Cargo are responsible for the global transportation of temperature-sensitive products within the Sartorius supply chain. These forwarders create their Lane Risk Assessments in Validaide, which are shared online with Sartorius and incorporated into the appropriate digital Lane SOP’s. Users can be assigned in multiple roles to contribute to or approve these documents, and each party can easily monitor the status and progress of the Lane Assessments in their Validaide environment.
“Previously we had to manage around 200 SOPs in different formats, but now with Validaide we have more than 400 in one format in one central platform, easy to access and efficient to approve and always up to date. We were able to create and approve these documents in record time over the last few months and increased the scope of our implementation from air freight to road freight and warehouse SOPs” comments Christian Doepke, Manager of Global Freight Solutions at Sartorius.
This multi-enterprise implementation illustrates the power of digital transformation in healthcare logistics, resulting in faster route qualification and efficiency gains for manufacturers and logistics providers alike. This is even more relevant in a period of frequent supply chain disruptions, which demands companies to quickly adapt to new logistics situations with remaining compliant with regulatory requirements.