Pharma Contract Manufacturers are the one who produces the Pharma formulations for other Pharma PCD or Marketing Companies. They may or may not have their own Pharma Marketing or PCD Pharma companies. On the backside are multiple services and goods providers like RAW material, Excipients packing material traders and manufacturers. Since the Pharma Manufacturer is dependent on these providers there are expected delays and difficulties. Everyone has its own level of competence and job skills so there are a continuous hit and trial method which is in play.
Pharma Manufacturer is never sure that there would be a regular supply of RAW material hence there is a need for him to store the material but on the other hand the cost of Raw material is so fluctuating that you can always be surprised, hence they store less, when they store less there is resultant delay supply and shortages.
Print and packing material is an important ingredient in the entire system and the traders are so overbooked that there is always delay from their side moreover most of the printer prints not less than 1000 boxes and companies which manufacturer less than that have to give inventory cost which adds to its overall production cost as their cash flow is blocked in inventories and if the Manufacturers do not charge the inventories and if the marketing companies do not send the repeat orders the print material gets blocked which cannot be destroyed as its charged but it cannot be stored for a long time as it occupies the warehouse space. Hence Manufacturer is always at the risk of blocking potential space for marketing companies.
As the boxes are to be designed and printed as per regulatory guidelines they need to be checked at multiple levels by QC guys.
The big problem comes when the machine is dysfunctional, all planning goes for a toss if a running machine goes out of order all the preparation done to clear the pending orders are disturbed the revival time varies from parts to parts and since the experts are outstation placed it adds to the woes.
There is lots of involvement of labour that is on rolls and off rolls, managing them in itself is a big task. Hiring an effective workforce is a challenge in itself and since Pharma Manufacturing is workforce intensive, hiring needs to be handled carefully.
Imagine to Manufacturer a medicine you have all the material but one of the excipients is missing for that one material your entire plan is disturbed. Meaning one has to very, very watchful about the inventories.
In order to get the profitability, it is important that a mix of low volume high demand and high volume low demand products to be mixed and not only that one has to have the sufficient quantities so as the batch size is prepared, collecting orders equivalent to batch size and right mix also is a challenge.
