Optimising Lane Qualification
We had the pleasure to welcome Luiz Alberto Barberini, Head of External Manufacturing, LatAm, Bayer at last year's Temperature Controlled Logistics Conference. Here he discusses why Brazil’s vast geography and lacking infrastructure pose a unique challenge for logistics professionals. He delved deeper into how these issues can be mitigated through smart supply chain management, streamlines logistics, and open communication with supply chain partners. He looked into establishing a governance model that strives to minimise stress in the relationship and create value.
Key Considerations When Moving Products in a Challenging Market
I was working as a logistic manager and saw something like this and I said, hey, guys, I know this company, we use one of those companies to transport something. The nicest one comes now. Then they change places, one changes to the other one. Can you see the speed? 120kph and he starts. So this goes to training, to proper driver selection, to people commitment, and this is important.
This guy is good, we can’t deny that. There are several other examples here. Yes, it’s this one. So when working for ABIQUIM, the chemical company association, you must remember that I have chemical products here. If an accident happens, my company is exposed to a lot of problems, but this goes to the countryside. Of course, we luckily can identify these drivers and get rid of them, for sure, but this is something that we must face in Brazil. It’s part of our reality.
Here, things start to get interesting. These are two products transported under proper conditions and wrong conditions. You can easily identify the differences between them, but what happens when I have to transport drugs? Can someone tell me, what’s the difference between these two products? No?
This is what we face when moving our products, our pharmaceutical products. I can’t really say that they are good for the consumer through the way that they were transported, that’s why I rely on my lanes and qualifying my transport and my lanes as well.
So just to name a few Brazilian bottlenecks: The infrastructure that we saw, the culture like we saw with the drivers, we have to deal with that, the tax regulation impact that causes my loads to go through all these movements, the health agency demands. Then I met ANVISA, so this is what happened.
Theft, we have huge cases of theft in Brazil. It’s a risky business. Very, very risky. I’ve worked for British American Tobacco and this is one of the most targeted payloads that we have. In some routes, we have a lack of adequate technology. In some regions of Brazil, I don’t have GPS. Part of our systems that we have on hand that are available here is not available in Brazil.
We must work with training, have huge training and adequate education to my partners, correct data loggers usage to teach people how to use the data loggers that we know. We must have contingency plans. If I have one accident with one of those trucks, how to have a contingency for that? I must know the routes and the lanes that I have my payloads going through. Sometimes I have to pick up a truck and go through that lane.
I used to talk about three topics and I’d like to mention this one. Probably some of you already heard about the bacon and eggs discussion. This is very simple to explain. I use that in my classes.
