Given the high responsibility for the storage and logistics of such essential products, most of the processes within the warehouse should be automatically regulated. Moreover, it is necessary to allocate proper control over the operation of these automatic systems by employees, in connection with which the indicators of temperature, humidity, light, and much more should be constantly displayed in the public domain. It is imperative to maintain a high level of sterility at all stages of transport and storage. In addition, surveillance cameras and a dedicated alarm response department should also be provided. One of the mechanisms requiring additional financial injections is the insurance of pharmaceutical products, which for the most part, can offset losses from most of the risks listed below. However, many companies still do not use this service in the supply chain during transportation and storage in warehouses (Shetty et al., 2021). As a result, these measures will be able to cover the risks of safety and integrity of the goods, as well as compliance with high storage requirements.
Reliability, reliability, and speed of the process must be conditioned by compliance with all legal and medical requirements. As a result, control systems installed at different stages of the product’s passage of the process chain can partly slow down the processes above. In this regard, it is necessary to find a balance that excludes safety risks, risks of the human factor and does not increase the risks of too vigilant control to the detriment of the main functional activity.
In addition, security issues are also determined by the specificity of the stored goods. Some pharmaceuticals can be toxic materials, costly to distribute. In this case, special alarms should be developed, as well as worked out response scenarios for both the particular security group and the rest of the warehouse workers. Labor safety is regulated at the legislative and legal levels, so each specialist in the warehouse must be instructed about the possibility of traumatic interaction with drugs and racks. Regular inspections of product storage structures and other working conditions will be monitored by federal agencies and must meet all requirements for the warehouse to continue operating. In this regard, security risks are associated with risks of external political and legal factors.
Moreover, the stabilization of the warehouse operation depends on the implementation of operational control over the range and volume between the production request and the actual transfer. In other words, there are risks of maintaining documentation and accounting for stored and transit goods. Risks in this situation are also associated with possible legal issues that may reveal low-quality control systems during an independent audit and economic issues of interaction between the supplier and the buyer.
In addition, there are risk indicators indicated in the U-Flow warehouse floor plan. Most of them are related to storage conditions and should prevent temperature fluctuations due to external factors and human error factors and avoid icing due to equipment failure. In this regard, as before, unique automatic and manual control systems, alarms are required if these indicators are outside the range of permissible values. What is more, the movement inside the warehouse must occur according to strictly defined rules, without a person crossing the safety line to safe working conditions and control the space; for example, loaders must not exceed the speed limits. Housekeeping in the warehouse should include all the necessary benefits for employees as safe as possible and not affect the main functional activities in the warehouse.
Finally, such activities are associated with risks of safety, external factors, the integrity of goods, economic losses, and working conditions. Each of such a group of risks requires control, and for some of them, this control is carried out from the outside: either at the federal level, as in the case of working conditions and storage of medicines, or at the manufacturer’s level. In addition to control systems, insurance is offered as a risk management mechanism, namely, specially designed programs for the storage and transportation of pharmacological agents that can cover most of the unforeseen situations associated with these risks.
Reference
Shetty, A. D., Shetty, A., Shetty, J., Shenoy, S., Sreedhar, D., & Nayak, S. (2021). Pharma insurance: A mechanism for risk mitigation. Research Journal of Pharmacy and Technology, 14(5), 2659-2664. Web.