The impact of serialisation on operational efficiency and productivity in Irish pharmaceutical sites.

Abstract

Serialisation Technology was introduced to protect the pharmaceutical supply chain from infiltration by falsified and substandard medicines. The implementation of serialisation systems required a substantial investment by pharmaceutical manufacturers. This study investigated the impact of serialisation on the operational efficiency and and productivity in Irish pharmaceutical sites. [...] The study identified a trend where Irish pharmaceutical sites are moving away smaller batch production and moving toward larger batches so as to gain greater efficiencies. The research also proposed the use of a serialisation depreciation factor [...] as a method to determine the impact of serialisation on the cost of goods sold.