CUSTOMER STORIES

MSD (Merck & Co.)

Removing silos in end-to-end supply chain planning.

About MSD

MSD (known as Merck & Co., Inc. in the US and Canada) has a 125-year history of improving people’s health and well-being, from the discovery of Vitamin B1 to the development of the measles vaccine to the treatment of high cholesterol. The company’s focus has always been on the patient. To continue delivering innovative medicines to patients in an increasingly competitive and changing world, MSD needed a world class supply chain.

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The Challenge and Benefit

MSD recognized, as many in the pharmaceutical industry do, that it was lagging behind other industries when it comes to supply chain management. According to global consulting firm McKinsey & Company, supply chain management accounts for 35 percent of the profit and loss for businesses in the pharmaceutical industry — compared with 8-12 percent in the consumer packaged goods industry. That’s the industry MSD looked to for inspiration and lessons learned when it set out on its transformation journey.

MSD’s vision is to plan more effectively, which in turn allows it to supply high-quality products to its customers at the lowest cost and with the shortest lead time. To meet these goals, MSD has undertaken a supply chain transformation initiative spanning global demand planning, global supply planning, distribution requirements planning (DRP) and sales and operations planning (S&OP) – using Kinaxis RapidResponse at its foundation. Unique RapidResponse algorithms are being leveraged to perform rough cut capacity planning (RCCP) and attribute-based planning. Multi-level expiry planning is also being deployed.

It was great to see the more our RapidResponse solution developed, the more our business partners started to show more and more interest. We were also receiving many different requirements from the business as well, and they started to ask if we could speed up some of the timelines to make certain functionality available earlier.
HENRIK FROJDH, Director, Digital Delivery and Transformation,
MSD

MSD saw great results – you can too

Kinaxis delivers the agility to make fast, confident decisions across your integrated business planning and digital supply chain.

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