Global pharma manufacturer picks Blue Vector to meet Turkish serialisation mandates

A major global pharmaceutical manufacturer has chosen California-based Blue Vector Systems" intelligent edge solution to satisfy the Turkish Ministry of Health's (MOH) serialisation requirements, set to go into effect on January 1, 2009.

The investment in Blue Vector's solution is also expected to yield significant business benefits arising from operational efficiencies and streamlined distribution processes.

Turkey, which has a pharmaceutical manufacturing base of more than 300 copanies, of which at least 50 are foreign owed, is one of the first countries in the world to mandate transport package and saleable unit serialisation and dictate specific product identification and labeling requirements.

Specifically, the Turkish MOH's amended regulations require serialising and tracking using barcode technology for all transport packages - such as pallets, parcels, boxes or bundles - as well as all unit-level items that are reimbursed by the MOH, including promotional samples, hospital packaged products, prescription and non-prescription drugs.

The Blue Vector system will enable the global pharmaceutical manufacturer to gain greater order fulfilment and shipping accuracy from its distribution operations as well as streamlined processes for faster reimbursement from the Turkish MOH. Other expected benefits include enhanced brand and consumer protection, greater counterfeiting and "grey market" detection, improved returns and recall processes, and vastly improved inventory visibility.

With Blue Vector's solution, the pharmaceutical manufacturer will be able to manage serialisation centrally with little disruption to its existing operations. Receiving both serialised and non-serialised product from its parent company and third parties, the manufacturer's distribution centre will require the capability to handle a variety of tasks including: serialising non-serialised product, managing and receiving serialised product, matching serialised product with delivery notices, sending data files to MOH, and performing exception processing and local data archival.

Blue Vector's technology is capable of managing a wide variety of wireless sensors - from RFID to 1-D and 2-D barcode to GPS and temperature sensors. By delivering contextual business intelligence to the edge of operations and enabling critical decision-making where the work is done, Blue Vector's sense and respond. software enables businesses to correct errors in real-time for 100% shipping accuracy, track and authenticate high value items throughout their supply chains, shrink order and sales cycle times, and automatically replenish inventories, among other benefits.

"This leading pharmaceutical company needed to find a proven solution that met the requirements of the approaching mandates," said Mike Gardner, Blue Vector president and ceo. "It determined that Blue Vector possessed the technical flexibility and scalability required to fully deploy and integrate our solution in their environment within such a compressed timeframe."