Year: 2021-22

Company: Merck

Liaison(s): Bala Sreenivasan, Jerry Docchio, Keith Lawlor, David Komjati

Merck & Co. is a leading, multinational pharmaceutical company with headquarters in Kenilworth, NJ. Their focus is on oncology, vaccines, infectious diseases, and cardio-metabolic disorders for human therapeutics. Merck has been a market leader for over 130 years. Their supply chain is vast and sophisticated given its extensive, global reach.
In this TMP, Merck divided the project into two segments within the Global Supply Chain: 1) The Creation of a Predictive Shipping Analytics Tool and 2) Generating a Competitive Intelligence for Autologous Products. We have divided this summary into two segments as well. The KGI team worked with the Global Supply Chain Management (GSCM) organization, to create a globalized, single source of predictive shipment planning data. This initiative was sponsored by the Digital Logistics & Analytics functional area, within the Global Distribution & Logistics Center of Excellence, with a goal of enhancing the predictive, decision-making capability of the various, “Global” and “Regional” Planning Teams regarding shipping choices.
To accomplish these objectives, the KGI team explored the various data warehousing tools available at Merck, plus the utilization of external partner services, and selected a “Self Service Insight (SSI) platform”, which allows for data warehousing, manipulation, and visualization to develop and create the predictive tool. After the KGI team extensively explored the data and identified primary keys to link the various data sets together, the team completed a proof of concept (POC) that will be used for investigating larger shipment data sets to complete the predictive analytics capabilities.
This project improved logistics analytics capabilities, including transportation capacity planning, shipment efficiency, budget planning, savings, and sustainability. This project also provided the KGI team with a holistic understanding of the complexities of the drug shipment planning and delivery process. This POC serves as a building block for Merck to derive supply chain insights that build upon its goal of supporting cost-effective and timely shipment planning, while mitigating and managing future ad hoc disruptions.