Today we visited two major companies in Limassol the first was Medochemie and the second was Colombia shipping management. The sight we visited for the Medochemie was in charge of the supply and shipping of many of the key parts of their medicine whether that be the boxes, vials, or capsules they will need for the manufacturing of its products. We got to see the advanced in-house storage units they had. The first was very interesting the stacks of products were on moving tracks that helped optimize the space they had in the facility. However, one of the disadvantages of this is it makes the process of collecting their stock slower. The second storage unit was not as optimal at using its space however the process of retrieving its products is much faster. The other benefit of the second nonautomatic unit was you could get individual packages down from the storage spaces.

After our visit to Medochemie we went to CSM Columbian ship management. This company is in charge of over 400 ships that deliver cargo, oil, and other shipping containers for the owners of the ships. There are multiple aspects of shipping that this company need to consider. Such as weather patterns, other ships, open ports, food ability for sailors, and staffing crews. We got to see the central control room of the operation where you could see the locations of ships, live information from each ship, and current patterns in the ocean. It was very interesting to see all the separate areas for controlling ships and how they interact. In addition to the control room, we also visited the emergency room for CMS. Here we got to see the space the heads of the organization would meet if there was a high-level emergency. These could include wrecks, broken mechanics within the ship, oil spills, and any other large-scale events. The people who are called in would have to work a rotating 12-hour shift. These can run anywhere from 1 to 6 days. There are many precautions that would need to be followed based on various ships or emergencies that are occurring. Overall, we learned a lot about the pharmaceutical and shipping industries. Such as the importance of organization and tracking within the companies.