7bridges is leveraging the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to improve how pharmaceutical companies manage their supply chains. 

With its innovative platform, 7bridges aims to provide insights, enhanced decision-making capabilities, and optimisation opportunities that promise to reshape the industry landscape. 

Supply chain solutions 

7bridges uses AI to give businesses the ability to understand the impact of every decision they make. Driven by data, the platform gives organisations the confidence to make positive changes to their operations. 

Alongside near real-time visibility, even into specialty carriers, 7bridges also gives supply chain leaders the opportunity to both gather insights into existing carrier performance and benchmark that performance against the wider industry. 

“Armed with that data, the platform grants pharmaceutical supply chain leaders the power to make decisions that drive better outcomes for both patients and businesses,” 7Bridges CEO, Philip Ashton explained.

The main challenges faced by pharma suppliers in comparing specialty carriers are rooted in data and risk mitigation. Those in the industry are all too aware of the risks that come with shipping supplies if mistakes are made. This is especially true of specialty carriers, where the goods they are carrying are time and temperature sensitive. For many pharma supply chain professionals, they do not have access to the right data to understand if these carriers are performing at the level agreed in their service agreements. 

“Poor performance could be costing businesses huge amounts given the costs of moving some goods around the world, but many have no way of recognising where these savings could be made,” Ashton warned.

This is where visibility is key. Having complete data visibility across carriers means businesses are able to track and measure if SLAs are being adhered to, and actively flag if carriers are not delivering on them. 

The second challenge with specialty carriers is that often these providers have to be tendered or work on a per-quote basis which tends to be manual. These are therefore often relationship-based and in favour of incumbent providers. 

“By adopting a data-driven, resilient supply chain approach, both of these challenges would be solved. Businesses would be able to compare and secure rates and contracts from other carriers, whilst having the functionality to measure performance and cost,” Ashton said.

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Time consuming traditions

Traditional procurement processes are manual and time consuming. Plus, many businesses do not have access to the tools needed to compare one set of carrier costs and service levels to another. 

“Ask yourself, how are you supposed to conduct an accurate procurement process if you don’t know if your carriers are adhering to the agreed SLAs?” Ashton stated.

Relying on manual processes in the pharmaceutical logistics industry hampers procurement teams with time consuming tasks, higher error risks, and limited supply chain visibility. 

“This inefficiency slows down procurement cycles and decision making, which in turn impedes data analysis and insights. Manual processes can be prone to inaccuracies, leading to delays and compliance issues,” he continued.

The 7bridges platform provides businesses with the data and visibility to accurately analyse the performance of their carriers. The platform allows their customers to see, in real-time, whether their chosen carriers are delivering on agreed SLAs and flag automatically if they are not. In addition, pharma companies are able to compare their carrier contracts to industry benchmarks and ensure they are receiving the most competitive rates for their chosen route, whatever outcome they are prioritising. 

Optimisation on the agenda

7bridges enables a complete overhaul of a pharmaceutical company’s supply chain, with little IT support to get started. First, 7bridges baselines and benchmarks logistics service providers and freight forwarders to understand if a business is getting the right service and charges. 

Then, they standardise invoice terms across suppliers and gain a true picture of performance, enabling the business to audit invoices, dispute incorrect charges and allocate charges to their cost centres. This allows them to understand how their service is performing at a holistic level, and gives them a route to identifying where to reduce supplier cost and improve performance.

Next, with their simulation layer, 7bridges uses the power of AI to allow clients to do complex “what if” analysis on a current or proposed network.  From utilising and identifying the most eco-friendly transport lanes, to measuring the impact of new distribution centres or how to launch a product with transport constraints, they enable businesses to proactively create a resilient supply chain.  Many use their simulation layer and service offering to gain best-in-class procurement results – utilising the platform to standardise and operationalise received bids from suppliers.

Finally, with their Automation layer, they give the power back to clients to benefit from AI insights in automating the booking of shipments. This includes choosing the correct partner based on cost, performance, or Co2 impact. The third layer provides all the necessary capabilities to book, monitor, and report on shipments in a single user interface.

“AI can play a crucial role in creating resilience in the pharmaceutical supply chain, through enhancing efficiency, agility, and forecasting capabilities,” Ashton said. “With AI-powered analytics, pharmaceutical companies can optimise inventory management, identify potential disruptions, and predict demand patterns more accurately.” 

“AI can be used to analyse extremely large volumes of data to help identify potential risks and suggest proactive measures far faster than humans are capable of,  as well as enabling automation that can streamline processes, in turn reducing errors and response times,” he continued. “Finally, AI also enables real-time monitoring and tracking of shipments, ensuring transparency, and enabling proactive intervention in case of issues.”

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Ready, not reactive

For too long, supply chains have been managed reactively, instead of being driven by outcomes and possibilities. 7bridges has seen the consequences of this in the last few years, when events such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the blockage of the Suez Canal had huge impacts on the movement of goods across the world. 

The technology hasn’t existed to truly quantitatively and holistically enhance supply side operations to meet strategic goals. That’s where AI-powered supply chain technology like 7bridges comes in. 

Traditionally, supply chain professionals are faced with mountains of spreadsheets from logistics service providers (LSPs) which use different terminology and ways to report their data. 7bridges’s platform allows businesses to make all this data ‘speak the same language’, enabling them to activate the data better, faster and more effectively.

“Our AI technology can give pharmaceutical companies the knowledge they need to adapt quickly, bringing all the data into one place to provide a bird’s eye view,” Ashton highlighted. “Smarter supply chains and greater visibility puts these companies in control to make better-informed decisions, so they are able to properly evaluate the carriers they are working with and have the insight to respond to price increases or issues in the supply chain in the best way.

“We go even further; we provide that much needed baseline to drive efficiency and simulations to tackle important “WHAT IF” questions: “What if there is another pandemic”; “What if I need to close a facility” – spreadsheets can’t do that!”  

Businesses need to be seeing the supply chain as an entire function, rather than different teams trying to work and fix each part of it. This shift is the first step in creating true resilience and requires teams to communicate better and adopt the technology required to make each part speak the same language. This will enable them to compare data and ensure that each part is optimised. 

“Managing risk and future-proofing are the big key phrases that the pharma sector is focused on,” Ashton concluded. “Big organisations need better granularity of emissions data, especially those that will need to start providing data to the businesses they serve – the ability to provide emissions figures that are based on real data rather than a stand-in like spend is what they’ll be looking for.”