At present, the medical logistics in China is in the primary stage of development, and many people who do "medical logistics" have not yet figured out what logistics is. This shows that people still have some misunderstandings about medical logistics from the perspective of investment and management.
Present situation and development trend of domestic pharmaceutical logistics
Throughout the development process of China's pharmaceutical logistics industry, China's pharmaceutical logistics industry has just started and is not yet mature, which can be summarized by "one feature, two trends, three misunderstandings and four problems":
1, a feature
At present, the biggest feature of China's pharmaceutical logistics industry is that it is still in the stage of single-link optimization of supply chain. China's medical logistics started late. At present, most of the pharmaceutical logistics projects that have been started or will be started are still in the stage of business integration and process optimization within enterprises, and rarely involve the integration of upstream pharmaceutical manufacturers, suppliers, downstream pharmaceutical wholesale and retail enterprises and hospitals, which fails to fundamentally solve the phenomena of repeated transportation, bullwhip effect, inventory backlog, etc., leading to a series of syndromes such as inefficient supply chain, increased drug distribution costs and rising drug prices.
2. Two trends
In the future, there are two significant trends in China's pharmaceutical logistics industry: first, logistics integration has risen to the height of enterprise strategic management; Second, logistics services are separated from the main business and professional management is implemented.
(1) Logistics integration has risen to the height of enterprise strategic management.
The operation mode of modern medical logistics will develop from the traditional wholesale mode to the supply chain management mode. Based on the logistics center, we will establish a market-oriented supply system with suppliers such as manufacturers (upstream enterprises) and distributors such as pharmaceutical retailers (downstream enterprises) to improve the efficiency of pharmaceutical distribution and form a relatively stable network of production and marketing alliances. In this transformation process, logistics management has risen from the level of activity management to the level of strategic management in many enterprises, and is regarded as an important part of development strategy. There are two reasons for this trend: first, in the process of reorganization and integration of pharmaceutical industry, the scale of enterprises continues to expand, and logistics network is the basis to ensure the effective integration of business resources and form scale advantages; Second, after the pharmaceutical industry enters the "era of meager profit", it will reduce costs and increase efficiency by strengthening logistics management, so as to realize its own cost advantage in the fierce competition.
(2) Logistics services are separated from the main business, and professional management is implemented.
At present, the profit rate of domestic pharmaceutical logistics is only 0.6%-0.7%; The expense ratio is still as high as 10%. The reason is that the operating cost of traditional logistics mode is too high, so many large domestic pharmaceutical enterprises, such as Shanghai Sinopharm, Shanghai Pharmaceutical and Nanjing Pharmaceutical, divest or entrust their original logistics business and assets to third-party logistics companies for independent settlement and mutual evaluation. There are two main reasons for this trend: first, the specialized operation of third-party logistics companies can effectively improve the level of logistics services, reduce logistics costs and create considerable economic benefits for the mother; Second, third-party logistics companies can provide logistics services for the parent company, and at the same time, they can also use the remaining resources to provide logistics services for other enterprises with similar products in society. This can greatly improve the return on investment of pharmaceutical logistics projects with huge investment in the early stage and realize intensive management. It can be predicted that in the future when medical logistics is paid more and more attention, we will see more and more such management modes of separation of main and auxiliary and professional operation.
3. Three misunderstandings
(1) It is unnecessary and impossible for SMEs to integrate logistics.
According to industry statistics, there are currently 1.65 million pharmaceutical wholesale enterprises, nearly1.40 million retail enterprises,1.20 million retail pharmacies and more than 6300 pharmaceutical production enterprises in China. More than 95% of these enterprises are small and medium-sized pharmaceutical enterprises. At the same time, it is a big misunderstanding in the development of medical logistics in China that it is unnecessary and impossible for small and medium-sized pharmaceutical enterprises to carry out logistics integration. Although small and medium-sized pharmaceutical enterprises can't become the leader of supply chain integration compared with large enterprises in investment, as a part of the current medical supply system, any supply chain optimization project can't be separated from this link. In the future when the integration of pharmaceutical supply chain in China is paid more and more attention, any supply chain member also hopes to have such a strategic partner to participate in the project and jointly explore the road to success. In fact, small and medium-sized pharmaceutical enterprises can integrate logistics at two levels, improve logistics service level and reduce logistics costs. First, at the operational level, actively optimize internal operation processes to improve efficiency and customer service level, and explore cooperation modes with third-party pharmaceutical logistics enterprises to reduce costs; Second, actively participate in the supply chain integration led by large enterprises at the strategic level, and achieve cost reduction and service improvement from upstream and downstream links.
(2) Equipment and technology determine competitiveness.
It is believed that the more advanced the logistics equipment and technology, the more favorable it is to strengthen the competitiveness of enterprises and the more attractive it is to customers and strategic partners. In the construction of logistics projects, it is another misunderstanding of domestic pharmaceutical logistics investment to emphasize the propaganda effect brought by advanced technology and ignore the coordination and consistency in system application. The direct consequence of this misunderstanding is that the systematization, informatization and automation of logistics are not tailored for themselves and do not match the existing business scale and management level. In fact, as a systematic project, the logistics efficiency and service level do not depend on the strongest part of the whole system, but on the weakest link. The high demand and investment of a single technical link can not significantly improve the performance of the whole logistics system. From the perspective of strategic investors, business partners or downstream customers, more attention is paid to the reliability and integrity of the whole logistics system and the overall service level of logistics, rather than the advanced level of logistics equipment and technology. There are still several obstacles for China's medical logistics to change from traditional extensive to modern information, such as policies and regulations, business processes, business models, concepts, software development and talents. If these major problems are not solved, no matter how advanced the equipment and technology are, it will be useless.
(3) Cost reduction brought by automation.
The role of automation in reducing logistics costs is mainly reflected in two aspects: first, the direct labor cost brought about by the improvement of work efficiency, and second, the indirect activity cost brought about by the reduction of error rate. At present, the enthusiasm of enterprises all over the world to invest in automated logistics centers is very high, and the declared projects range from tens of millions to hundreds of millions. However, the current situation in China is as follows: on the one hand, it is difficult for enterprises to lay off employees under the state-owned system, thus reducing labor costs; On the other hand, after the automation equipment is put into operation, it will generate tens of thousands of yuan of energy consumption every day. What's more, due to the shortage of domestic power supply, many automation equipment can only be in semi-production state, and it is impossible to reduce costs through large-scale operation. Therefore, the dilemma faced by many enterprises is that after the automated logistics center is launched, the logistics cost will rise instead of falling.
It is China pharmaceutical enterprises' one-sided understanding of automation that leads to the above reasons. Whether an advanced mechanical equipment operating system can play its role effectively is closely related to the informatization level and information management of the enterprise itself, but many enterprises blindly pursue informatization and logistics mechanization, regardless of whether it really suits the actual needs of their own enterprises. As a matter of fact, China's medical warehouses do not need automatic storage equipment at all. The reason why foreign countries realize full automation is because of the high labor cost, and other supporting environments: policies, talents and business processes have reached such a level. These two conditions are not available in China at present, so the "arming to the teeth" of this logistics equipment should be a gradual process. At present, it is enough to put the corresponding equipment into practice.
4. Four questions
(1) Supporting policies and standards are not in place.
The audit system of third-party pharmaceutical logistics enterprises is still unclear. At present, the state gives discount loans and other policy support to the establishment of pharmaceutical logistics centers in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. An inevitable result of these reforms is that pharmaceutical third-party logistics enterprises are separated from the original pharmaceutical wholesale enterprises, and once separated, they will face the qualification assessment and evaluation problems of these new third-party logistics enterprises. However, at present, there is no new evaluation system in China. The original GSP certification is only applicable to pharmaceutical circulation enterprises, and many contents of GSP for third-party pharmaceutical logistics enterprises are no longer applicable. The formulation of a new evaluation system is imminent.
In addition, the country has not yet issued a unified drug code. Unified coding can establish a drug quality tracking and investigation system, but for a long time, due to the wide variety of drugs, there is no unified coding in the country, and the names of drugs are complex, including Chinese names, trade names, English names and Latin names. This has brought a lot of trouble to manufacturers, hospitals, especially large chain pharmacies. This self-contained coding can neither realize information sharing in information circulation, nor is it conducive to drug supervision, resulting in a great waste of resources. In addition, the inconsistency of logistics standards has also become a major obstacle to the standardization, efficiency and internationalization of medical logistics in China. For example, there is a lack of uniform standards for drug logistics containers, drug packaging boxes and drug storage trays. Therefore, we must speed up the standardization of medical logistics. At the same time, adjust the licensing system and business scope of pharmaceutical logistics distribution centers, connect with international standards, establish a strict licensing system for distribution centers, and establish a licensing filing system for distribution sub-centers under distribution centers.
(2) Investment is overheated and scattered, lacking effective integration.
Since July 2002, Beijing Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. signed a contract with Siemens Dematech, an internationally renowned logistics design and manufacturing company, to establish a modern pharmaceutical logistics distribution center, and the upsurge of building a large-scale pharmaceutical logistics center has been widely set off all over the country. At present, China Pharmaceutical Group, Shanghai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. and Jiuzhoutong Group Co., Ltd., which have the largest sales volume in China, only account for about 3% ~ 5% of the total sales volume of the pharmaceutical market respectively. At the same time, these pharmaceutical logistics enterprises are all based on a single enterprise in logistics construction, showing a situation of more points, large scale and large investment. Design scale requirements are often three to five times the existing business scale of enterprises, and it is often necessary to support sales of tens of billions of yuan. However, because the environment of supply chain integration in domestic pharmaceutical industry has not yet formed, and the third-party pharmaceutical logistics is not mature, the result of repeated investment is that all families are hungry and it is difficult to form scale effect.
Compared with the United States, the average consumption supported by each distribution center in China is only11.75% of that in the United States; The sales per square meter of distribution center can only support 40% of the United States; On average, each distribution center can support only 24% of SKU specifications in the United States. However, the average operating cost of handling single-line orders in China is 2.78 times that of the United States. Because of small sales and low efficiency, the operation will be in trouble. Some time ago, in Wuhan, a thoroughfare of nine provinces, there were four medical logistics centers built and under construction, one of which was obviously short of business and fell into a loss dilemma.
(3) The third party logistics is immature
Because the divested pharmaceutical logistics enterprises have not experienced the development process of general third-party logistics enterprises, there are many shortcomings in the third-party logistics capabilities. First, the distribution network is single. The distribution network is mainly evolved from the previous routes and nodes of drug import and sales, and the distribution is unreasonable. It is not designed from the perspective of planning the distribution network of the third-party logistics system. Second, the informatization ability is low, and the informatization construction of medical logistics is backward. At present, there is no mature information scheme to adapt to the domestic market. Many enterprises have not been able to use information technology to improve efficiency. Thirdly, pharmaceutical logistics enterprises adopt the stacking mode of warehouses, vehicles and personnel, and mainly rely on manpower to store and transport goods, and the quality of personnel is not high. When faced with greater commodity throughput, factors such as efficiency, speed, accuracy and cost will have an impact on development. According to relevant statistics, at present, the average logistics cost of domestic pharmaceutical merchants accounts for more than 10% of sales, while the average logistics cost of American pharmaceutical wholesalers only accounts for 2.6%. The net profit rate of pharmaceutical business is only 0.72%, and the profit rate of American pharmaceutical wholesalers is 1.55%. Therefore, there is still a big gap between logistics means and developed countries.
(4) Lack of professional management talents
At present, experts in the industry estimate that only 100 people can really be called senior medical logistics talents. At present, China urgently needs about 2000 senior medical logistics talents, which means that the proportion of medical logistics talents in the total social demand is less than 1/20, and with the continuous warming of medical logistics, the gap will be great. There are three main reasons for the lack of medical logistics professionals: First, because many pharmaceutical companies have only a vague concept of logistics, many managers think that medical logistics is just a simple addition of medical transportation and warehousing. Under the guidance of this concept, these top managers who have little knowledge of logistics themselves mistakenly believe that it is better to find more warehouse keepers and cargo transporters than to hire medical talents with high salaries, so many so-called logistics talents are actually only operators. This leads to the false expansion of talent supply, which makes the demand for compound logistics talents and strategic talents not as strong as before, which is not conducive to the cultivation of compound talents in medical logistics. Secondly, there are still various omissions in the whole logistics talent management process, which leads to the direct or indirect loss of logistics talents. For example, the traditional medical logistics salary incentive effect is not good, and the employee training plan is not at all or immature. Third, the integration of departments is not complete. As a service department that coordinates production and sales, the logistics department often makes strategic decisions for several functional departments of the enterprise, so the enthusiasm of logistics personnel depends largely on the coordination and cooperation between the whole organization.
Introduction to pharmaceutical logistics
As a complex system engineering, medical logistics is by no means accomplished overnight.
First of all, it depends on advanced information and network systems. In traditional enterprises, due to the requirements of information management, internal process reengineering and organizational structure innovation are needed, because information pursues overall optimization, not local optimization. Secondly, it is also restricted by macro factors such as social infrastructure, policies and regulations, and also depends on the support of micro factors such as enterprise talents, funds and management. Therefore, it is necessary for the pharmaceutical industry to correct its concept, liberate itself from the traditional thinking mode of "transportation plus storage", deeply understand the connotation of logistics operation and the potential problems it faces, and implement a strategic logistics system.
Implement a positive policy for the development of pharmaceutical logistics.
To develop medical logistics in China, we must first build and cultivate the medical logistics market from a macro perspective, and gradually standardize and legalize this market. Therefore, efforts should be made to break local protectionism and create a competitive environment for the pharmaceutical logistics market. At the same time, the government should introduce corresponding laws to protect and policies to promote the development of pharmaceutical logistics.
According to the Drug Administration Law, formulate detailed rules for the implementation of pharmaceutical logistics, plug the loopholes in the management of drug circulation, and further improve the macro-control ability. The pharmaceutical market must be orderly and effective, and disorderly and ineffective competition will affect the standardized operation of the pharmaceutical market.
Strengthen monitoring, divest inefficient pharmaceutical logistics departments, gradually realize the socialization of enterprise logistics activities, and cultivate broad and solid market demand for the development of pharmaceutical logistics market. Establish a strict medical logistics market access system, restrict unqualified personnel from entering the medical logistics market and control vicious competition.
Increase investment in the transformation and construction of medical logistics infrastructure, and make full use of national debt funds and foreign capital to develop medical logistics; Adjust the licensing system and business scope of pharmaceutical logistics service distribution center, conform to international standards, establish a strict access licensing system for distribution centers, establish a licensing filing system for distribution centers under distribution centers, and allow distribution centers to distribute to their own brand network terminals and social pharmacies, clinics and hospitals to improve the efficiency of distribution centers; Accelerate the transformation of county-level pharmaceutical companies into pharmaceutical distribution centers.
Give full play to the role of the government in promoting medical logistics. First of all, the policies of various government departments should be connected with each other; Secondly, the government needs to formulate corresponding industry standards and regulations to assist the industry in formulating logistics standardization. The standardization of drug coding, equipment, packaging, transportation, loading and unloading tools and pallets used in logistics operations all need the guidance and supervision of the government; Third, the government needs to provide financial and tax support. If the government approves the construction project of 1 1 national debt discount medical logistics center, the logistics centers established by Sinopharm Logistics, Chongqing Heping Pharmacy and Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Company are all among them.
Scientific planning of medical logistics infrastructure
It is necessary to combine foreign advanced technology with the actual situation of Chinese pharmaceutical enterprises, combine the planning and development of "small logistics" of pharmaceutical enterprises with "big logistics" of society, and actively promote and deepen the reform of pharmaceutical production and circulation.
Building a modern logistics system is an urgent task. It is necessary to change the traditional management mode and management concept, introduce all advanced technologies that have been tested by practice into production and circulation enterprises, and then improve and develop the logistics system with its own characteristics through practice. When advocating to speed up the construction of modern medical logistics, we should still adhere to the active and steady policy, and never rush headlong into action, and never repeat the old road of diversified investment and repeated construction. It is very inappropriate for every enterprise or chain store to establish a logistics center.
The focus of modern medical logistics is to reasonably divide and integrate suppliers, logistics centers and terminal sales networks. Suppliers focus on the product development, production and service of end consumers, while logistics centers focus on the services of upstream suppliers and downstream customers, and carry out large-scale distribution through logistics to improve logistics efficiency and reduce circulation costs. The terminal sales network mainly focuses on drug sales and provides professional health consulting services. The government should make overall planning, formulate standardized policies for the development of pharmaceutical logistics, make a reasonable layout of the construction of logistics centers, and guide enterprises to take the road of specialization and cooperation with policies.
Modern medical logistics has the characteristics of socialization, systematization and networking, and the integration of logistics functions and elements is the key to the development of modern medical logistics. It is necessary to use policies to guide asset restructuring, management restructuring, and technical restructuring to form alliances and intensively coordinate development. Newly established pharmaceutical logistics enterprises should give full play to the advantages of the Internet, timely and accurately grasp the dynamic information of logistics, coordinate logistics outlets, build a national integrated logistics network, save time and expenses to the maximum extent, win competitive advantages, and provide quality services for suppliers.
Establish a pharmaceutical logistics distribution center
Some modern pharmaceutical commercial enterprises have good conditions for establishing modern logistics. The key is to integrate the existing resources according to the conditions of modern logistics, so that its functions can gradually play a role and gradually occupy the market.
To establish a logistics distribution center, we must first focus on our own distribution and face hospitals, retail pharmacies and other businesses; The second is to attract major suppliers and establish network cooperation with them, so that the logistics center can become a distribution center or transit warehouse for other drugs and expand its functions; The third is to expand from distributing drugs to storing and distributing related products needed by hospitals and pharmacies.
At the same time, the logistics center not only realizes its own management informationization, but also helps upstream and downstream customers to realize the modernization of logistics management, establish a network, realize online trading, computer ordering, bill making, distribution, accounting, management and information processing, and form a large logistics and regional logistics center.
The staff of the logistics center can be composed of the above three parties, and the personnel of the drug circulation enterprises are responsible for the management. These logistics centers mainly include the management, turnover, sorting and distribution of medical commodities in warehouses. Establishing a logistics center to manage the overall logistics operation of drugs can not only speed up the circulation of drugs and improve the efficiency of drug circulation, but also reduce the logistics cost of drugs by integrating logistics management.
By establishing strategic alliances, pharmaceutical wholesale enterprises can integrate their unique enterprise resources into one, realize complementary enjoyment, enable leading enterprises to form large-scale operation and reduce operating costs. Integrate the whole industrial chain that is interrelated and coordinated, and form a socialized medical logistics system with supply chain as the core, so that logistics activities will gradually differentiate from the process of production, trading and consumption and become a professional commercial activity.
Accelerate the integration of logistics resources
Through the reorganization, joint and integrated development of pharmaceutical enterprises, the internal logistics operation process will be optimized to improve the logistics efficiency and service level of pharmaceutical circulation enterprises.
First of all, the participants in the sales channel (manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and consumers) should unite to implement integrated management to ensure the rationalization of pharmaceutical logistics behavior. Sales logistics in modern logistics management is not only a single-stage sales logistics (such as relatively independent logistics activities from manufacturers to wholesalers, wholesalers to retailers, retailers to consumers), but a whole sales logistics activity, that is, an integrated logistics system covering manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and consumers.
Second, through the market, a number of large pharmaceutical enterprise groups with cross-regional, cross-industry, cross-ownership and transnational operations will be formed. Through integrated development, we can realize the alliance of manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers or the strong alliance of wholesalers, reduce logistics costs and improve logistics efficiency and service level.
Because the overall logistics level of pharmaceutical circulation enterprises is low, optimizing the internal logistics operation of pharmaceutical circulation enterprises is also an important issue to accelerate the development of pharmaceutical circulation enterprises. Enterprises should combine their own actual situation, implement process reengineering of the original distribution system, effectively use and manage the existing logistics resources, and carefully optimize management in the aspects of rationalization of enterprise commodity transportation, automation of commodity storage, inventory informationization, etc., so as to improve the operation efficiency of distribution centers.
Realize the informatization of pharmaceutical circulation industry
Informatization is the key factor for the successful expansion of pharmaceutical circulation enterprises and the reduction of management costs. As a link between the upstream and downstream of the pharmaceutical industry, pharmaceutical wholesale enterprises need to establish modern logistics more than other enterprises, and rely on their powerful information systems to establish information sharing with hospitals, retail outlets and suppliers to help suppliers, hospitals and retailers supply, stock up and provide services. Logistics information processing has become an important means to improve competitiveness.
The development of modern medical logistics must be supported by information construction and guide enterprises to develop advanced information technology; Strengthen the application of bar code, GSP management and electronic data exchange, management information system, radio frequency technology, enterprise resource planning, global positioning system and supply chain management in modern pharmaceutical logistics enterprises, and comprehensively improve the level of enterprise information management.
Informatization is the foundation of modern medical logistics, which needs the strong support of the government to speed up the process of networking and informatization construction. In developed countries, the network construction has been perfect, and the information systems supporting logistics are also extensive, mainly including Global Positioning System (GPS), Electronic Data Exchange System (EDI), Automatic Continuous Replenishment System (CRP), Electronic Order System (EOS), Point of Sale Real-time Control System (POS), expressway Transportation System (ITS), Car Search System (KIT) and Fund Fast Payment System (EFI).
China's network infrastructure construction is relatively backward, the transmission speed is slow, and the use cost is high, which makes many network applications unable to be carried out, which directly hinders the process of enterprise informatization; Secondly, China's informatization construction is slow, and the degree of development and utilization of information resources is low, which has a considerable gap with foreign countries. Therefore, the government needs to mobilize funds from all parties through multiple channels, speed up the construction of information networks, and realize the interconnection between high-speed information networks and enterprises as soon as possible.
Application of logistics trusteeship in the field of medical logistics
With the increasingly personalized needs of customers in China's pharmaceutical market, providing customers with fast and accurate drug distribution services has become an important way for pharmaceutical circulation enterprises to win market competition. At present, most pharmaceutical circulation enterprises in China still provide pharmaceutical logistics services to customers by means of self-operated warehouses and motorcades, but the biggest difficulty of this operation mode lies in the high logistics cost and low customer service, which is difficult to meet the competition of enterprises in the future market. Under this background, it is the strategic choice of most pharmaceutical circulation enterprises in China to choose a powerful third-party logistics enterprise to participate in the logistics operation of the enterprise.
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