Logistics

At the country level, we devise tailored approaches to improve supply chain logistics for each country, including segmenting our distribution strategy by end-user needs. Our teams’ expertise includes distribution/transportation, warehousing/inventory, management information systems, and waste management specialists, who work closely with ministries of health and other government officials to think through warehouse network and distribution route optimization, outsourcing or public-private partnerships, vendor-managed inventory, mobile applications, turnkey modular facilities, and other opportunities to raise the bar for strengthening supply chains.

The vision is to improve each country’s ability to provide last-mile services while identifying areas for strengthening governance, frameworks, and financing systems for logistics.

The use of unmanned aerial vehicle delivery and low-cost technologies like GPS trackers and mobile applications to create a supply chain control tower are some of the innovations we’re exploring to help our partner countries stay on the leading edge of supply chain logistics. 

GHSC-PSM inherited a supply chain system with five regional warehouses servicing a limited set of health commodities. In 2016, the project completed a thorough modeling exercise to determine the optimal placement of our regional distribution centers. Using historic data of  shipments from previous projects,  the modeling exercise generated demand scenarios through 2020 for 19 product groups with high demand, high value, and long production lead time.

The optimization exercise strategically placed three regional warehouses for all health commodities procured by the project.

The project’s electronic data exchange occurs through the Automated Requisition Tracking Management Information System (ARTMIS), which allows for:

• central management of sourcing events;
• real-time, per-transaction stock monitoring;
• efficient, automated distribution and replenishment orders; and
• regular assigned alerts on shipment statuses. 

ARTMIS also provides the opportunity to analyze data regularly for continuous improvements and more transparency on key performance indicators.

Integrating GS1 barcodes into our systems is a key goal for GHSC-PSM. These barcodes will enable tracking and tracing commodities across the supplier base and through country logistics management information systems.