Today we went to Meodchemie and CSM. Since both Medochemie and CSM are in Limassol today, we only had at most a 15-minute bus ride between locations. We visited Medochemie first. At Medochemie, we are informed on how the medicine supply chain works. Medocmeie is a manufacturer and a distributor. Because of this, they have a strong quality assurance team to ensure all of their products follow GMP guidelines. Quality assurance has multiple trials that make each batch of products undergo at each stage of the manufacturing process. Medochemie is a significant medicine distributor, and because of that, they use forecasting, as we learned about it yesterday at the University of Nicosia. After our presentation on how Medochemie works, we went to their warehouse. Their warehouse is divided into two sections, one that utilizes as much space as possible and one that products can quickly move into and out of. The first part was designed to maximize space because the stored product is not forecasted to be needed for quite a while. In the other part of the warehouse, the stored products must be distributed within a week or so, so that is why that portion of the warehouse is designed to maximize speed rather than space.
The second visit today was Colombia Ship Management. At CSM, we learned how cargo ships are informed of what to do and the most optimal route. CSM has an entire team designed to find the most effective way for a boat. The group considers weather, sea conditions, risk of piracy, etc. Even though the CSM team has all this information to decide what route a ship should take, it is ultimately the captain of that specific ship’s decision on what way to take. CSM also has an emergency room and a chain of command in case of an emergency. They developed this because shipping as an industry has an inherent risk to it, be it for people or the environment, and CSM wants to respond effectively to an emergency.
The Intricacies of Distribution
