Issues such as overstocking, shortages, waste from expired medicines, and difficulties in tracking origin are major pain points in pharmaceutical management. These problems pose significant risks and financial losses. With cutting-edge AI technology, we offer a breakthrough solution that enhances transparency, safety, and efficiency, reduces operational costs, and provides a critical competitive edge for large-scale supply chains, especially in the post-pandemic landscape.
Challenges: Inefficient Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Management
Pharmaceutical manufacturers, distributors, and hospitals face complex supply chain issues, resulting in considerable losses and serious risks:
- Medicine and medical supply shortages/overstocking: Poor demand forecasting leads to shortages when medicines are urgently needed (impacting patient care) or overstocking (wasting storage space and tying up capital).
- Losses due to expired stock: Inefficient inventory management causes large quantities of medicines to expire, resulting in financial losses and wasted resources.
- Difficulty in traceability and counterfeiting risks: The complexity of pharmaceutical supply chains, involving multiple stakeholders, makes it difficult to trace a product from manufacturer to patient. This raises the risk of counterfeit or substandard drugs, directly threatening public health.
- High transportation and warehousing costs: Lack of route optimisation and inefficient warehouse management increases logistics costs, affecting drug pricing.
- Lack of transparency and slow response to incidents: In the event of a recall, insufficient real-time data on affected stock locations and quantities can delay response, leading to serious consequences.
- Post-COVID-19 pressures: The pandemic exposed critical vulnerabilities in global pharmaceutical supply chains, highlighting the urgent need for resilience and agility.
Real-life example: A hospital over-ordered flu vaccines in anticipation of high demand, but only used a small portion. Thousands of doses expired and had to be discarded, resulting in losses worth billions of VND. In another case, a faulty drug batch could not be quickly traced back to its distribution point, posing significant risk to patients.
Breakthrough AI Solution: A “Smart Network” for Pharmaceutical Supply Chains
Our AI-driven pharmaceutical supply chain solution functions as a “smart network” that accurately forecasts demand, optimises inventory, integrates Blockchain for traceability, and streamlines logistics. This is critical for boosting transparency, safety, and efficiency in modern pharmaceutical operations.
How the Solution Works:
Our system leverages advanced technologies to automate and optimise every aspect of the pharmaceutical supply chain:
1. AI-Powered Demand Forecasting
Machine learning algorithms analyse multiple complex factors that influence drug demand, such as:
- Historical sales data: Trends by season and region.
- Epidemiological data: Disease outbreaks and health trends.
- External factors: Weather, healthcare policies, social events.
- Order and prescription data: Real-time insights from distribution points and hospitals.
This allows the system to generate highly accurate forecasts, significantly outperforming traditional methods and reducing both shortages and surplus.
2. Smart Inventory Optimisation
Based on forecasted demand, AI automatically recommends optimal stock levels for each warehouse, hospital, or pharmacy by considering:
- Expiry dates: Prioritising near-expiry batches to minimise losses.
- Storage and stock-out costs: Balancing sufficient stock with cost efficiency.
- Supplier lead time: Ensuring timely replenishment.
3. Blockchain-Based Traceability
Blockchain technology creates an immutable distributed ledger to record every transaction and movement of medicines across the supply chain, including:
- Manufacturer: Production date, batch numbers, ingredients.
- Distributor: Transport history and storage conditions.
- Hospital/Pharmacy: Stock-in/out details and patient delivery.
This ensures full transparency, effective anti-counterfeiting, and rapid recall capabilities when needed.
4. Logistics & Route Optimisation
AI algorithms calculate the most efficient delivery routes to reduce fuel costs, delivery time, and maintain appropriate storage conditions (e.g. temperature control) throughout transit.
5. IoT for Cold Chain Monitoring
IoT sensors monitor real-time temperature and humidity conditions of pharmaceutical shipments, ensuring that sensitive products remain within their ideal environment—especially crucial for cold chain logistics.
Core Technologies and Competitive Advantages
Our solution is built upon a robust technological foundation:
- Machine Learning (Time Series Forecasting): Models such as ARIMA, Prophet, and LSTM are used to forecast demand accurately based on time-series data.
- Blockchain Technology: Distributed ledger technology (DLT) provides a secure, transparent, and tamper-proof traceability system.
- IoT (Internet of Things): Real-time data from sensors in warehouses and delivery vehicles.
- Big Data Analytics: Integrates data from sales history, epidemiology, and IoT devices to generate actionable insights.
- Optimisation Algorithms: Techniques such as Linear Programming and Genetic Algorithms to streamline inventory and logistics.
- Cloud Computing: Ensures scalability, secure data storage, and high-performance processing.
Tangible Outcomes: Safer, Smarter Supply Chains
With accurate forecasting, optimised inventory, and full traceability, our AI solution has delivered impactful results for our partners:
- 25–35% reduction in shortages/overstock: Ensures medicine availability while improving capital efficiency.
- 15–20% reduction in losses from expired drugs: Smarter inventory turnover minimises waste.
- 10–15% savings in logistics and operational costs: Through route and warehouse optimisation.
- Enhanced transparency and anti-counterfeiting: Protects patients and strengthens supply chain credibility.
- Improved resilience and agility: Enabling rapid response to market changes or disruptions.
This solution not only delivers significant economic benefits but also plays a crucial role in safeguarding public health and ensuring pharmaceutical safety at every stage of the supply chain.
