E2E Stockroom Solutions ? ?A Diamond In The Rough?

A pharmaceutical laboratory stockroom consists of different components such as centrally housed stockrooms, kiosks, point of use storerooms and bench top storage locations which are all interconnected either by a physical or a virtual supply chain. The stockroom typically holds lab consumables, chemicals and reagents, saferty supplies, benchtop equipment and instruments. Despite the fact that stockroom management has always been one of the focus areas in laboratory mangement, the level of efficiency and effectiveness has not been at its best. With the evolution of technology, suppliers have also evolved to address each and every pain point of the buyer from a holistic perspective. A similar effort putforth by a few of the top suppliers has resulted in end to end management storeroom solutions with minimum lead time and inventory levels possible. The future is moving towards outsourcing the entire stockroom management to suppliers in order to focus on their core competency of research. This paper identifies the various parameters to be considered to create an efficient stockroom and addresses the key operational issues that arise in end to end stockroom management. This also ponders upon how pharmaceutical companies have been successful in reducing the inventory levels and improving the product availability for the research scientists.