As per the new Drug Quality and Security Act, pharmaceutical packaging companies are now required to implement serialization systems in their packaging lines in order to provide complete traceability of all packaged medication. Furthermore, this measure tends to combat the trade in counterfeiting medicines and also seeks the extinction of cargo thefts. The paper details the feasibility study of such a system for a local pharmaceutical company and the study of its impact on critical performance parameters such as efficiency, lead time etc. The study represents a practical application of Lean tools such as value stream mapping, failure mode effect analysis and simulation in the analytic thinking process. The new system is shown to reduce the rejection rates of the bulk thereby improving the efficiency of the system. After the requirements of the line were learnt through the study, three vendors were researched for the implementation of serialization system.
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