4 questions for: Klaus Murko
Smoothly coordinated supply chain
E-commerce is not just Amazon and co., intralogistics is also facing challenges in the pharmaceutical industry. Klaus Murko is Vice President Healthcare & Cosmetics at SSI Schaefer. He sees intralogistics as the "supreme discipline" for companies that are active in this area.
Materialfluss direkt: What special features need to be taken into account for Healthcare & Cosmetics?
Klaus Murko: Efficient and error-free logistics is a key success factor for our customers. The issues of speed and same-day delivery are not a new challenge for us. The lead times for our healthcare installations have long been very short. In addition to these expectations, there are legal requirements for the complete traceability of batches and the monitoring of best-before dates. The recording and comparison of unique serial numbers for drug safety is also a must in many countries. The large number of SKUs and the high volatility make intralogistics the supreme discipline here.
MD: What challenges does the trend towards e-commerce pose in this segment in particular?
Murko: The cornerstone for many of our successful e-commerce customers is the diverse product range, a smoothly coordinated supply chain and a tailor-made logistics solution. Like a large Danish toy manufacturer, we offer various standard modules (proven logistics solutions), which we then tailor and configure together with our customers to meet their individual needs. From the outset, we ensure that these remain modular and flexibly scalable at all times - because the growth rates of many companies in e-commerce are explosive.
MD: What role does e-commerce currently play and what role will it play in the future?
Murko: This varies and must be considered on a country-specific basis in our sector. But even in markets where online retail in the Healthcare & Cosmetics sector is already very pronounced - such as the USA - we continue to expect above-average growth. We expect even greater increases in Europe in particular. E-commerce will neither be able nor willing to displace local providers, such as brick-and-mortar pharmacies. Here, too, we see the future in an interlinked interaction between manufacturers, wholesalers, bricks-and-mortar and online retailers.
MD: Does packaging design play a negative role here too, as the experts explain in the round table (p. 4)?
Murko: This is not the case in the Healthcare & Cosmetics sector: the automated solution must adapt to the packaging and not vice versa. This means that all current and future new and further developments must be based on the existing packaging geometries and materials.
The questions were asked by Martin Schrüfer
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