Scaling Biotech - Part 3: Connecting planning and execution across the partner network

Supply planning in biotech looks months and years ahead, but external partners carry out the plan day-by-day as they make, store and move the product. Once a biotech is commercial, connecting those partners digitally gives it grip on that shorter horizon by gaining end-to-end visibility across the supply chain. That journey to maturity typically starts with transport, then moves to warehousing partners and distributors, and later to collaboration with CMOs.

The first article looked at the challenges that push biotechs towards digitalizing their planning, and the second mapped the planning capabilities and their order, which set the direction for the longer term. This article explains how to connect planning and execution across the partner network.

The planning-execution gap: where good plans get stuck

Because lead times are long, the plan looks far ahead and is built on demand and supply assumptions. Those assumptions change between planning cycles: a shipment sits at customs, a CMO batch slips. In an internal supply chain, you'd see this in your own systems. As mentioned before, asset-light biotechs own very little of their physical supply chain. DS is made at one CMO and DP at another, packaging may sit with a third, and warehousing partners, distributors and specialist carriers handle the rest. Each runs its own systems and holds part of the picture. 

Without partner integration, you're basically flying blind, with irregular updates and no visibility of what happens in between. Hence, deviations show up late, and corrective actions such as expediting becomes the only way to protect service. This is what I mean with planning-execution gap. Instead of steering execution and anticipating disruptions, you end up firefighting and driving up costs.

Three layers of partner integration

We can group the external partners by what they do: carriers handle shipments, warehousing partners and distributors store and deliver stock, and CMOs manufacture. That gives three layers, summarized in the table below. The capabilities in scope show what should be integrated, what visibility into execution it gives and when the integration earns its place. 

1. Shipment & Transport Orchestration

Transport standardization and automation earns its place from the first commercial shipments, and because shipments are always there, it's the logical starting point. A TMS implementation isn't simple, but you need one to simplify shipment operations and control cost. With cold chain and white-glove service, a single shipment can run into tens of thousands of euros, so error-prone manual follow-up becomes costly quickly, and mistakes become more frequent as volumes grow.

The business outcome is control, visibility and cost efficiency, with one standard process for every shipment. A practical start is booking, execution and monitoring in the TMS, which gives end-to-end shipment visibility and better control over carriers, so you can step in when a delay or temperature excursion happens rather than learning about it later. Automated bookings, carrier selection, rate comparison and invoice checks against rate cards then optimize cost and service.

Over time, actual transit times per lane sharpen lead times in the distribution plan, and volumes and cost per lane inform Logistics Capacity Planning and carrier negotiations. Combined with stability data, they also let Quality assess whether a less strict and a more cost-effective transport solution is acceptable. Once you're commercial, your supply chain has to run as a profitable business, and cost-efficient transport is usually the first step towards that.

2. Warehousing & Distribution Orchestration

This layer earns its place once stock sits with partners in several markets and warehouses. Distributors handle the last mile to your end customers, whether hospitals, pharmacies or wholesalers, and together with warehousing partners they hold a large part of your inventory. That inventory costs money and has a limited shelf life, and mismanaging it hurts through write-offs, service level hits or both. Tracking it by email and spreadsheet is weak for compliance, and it only gets harder as you grow.

The business outcome is better product availability and customer service, with standardized, automated visibility across inventory, orders and deliveries. Exceptions get handled faster, since a blocked lot or a missed delivery shows up the day it happens. The capabilities in scope fall into four groups: logistics (goods receipt, lots, quarantine, picking and goods issue), financial (stock valuation, write-offs, sales between legal entities, and settlement), quality (batch status and quality documents) and planning (replenishment triggers).

3. External Manufacturing Orchestration

This layer earns its place once you work with a larger group of CMOs. Most of your lead time and cost sits in production, and without CMO data you can't control production. Email works with one or two CMOs, not with a growing network.

The business outcome is more reliable and responsive supply. External Manufacturing Orchestration usually builds up in three tiers. Base transactions come first (purchase orders, shipping notices, goods receipts, invoices and CMO-to-CMO hand-offs). They give the quickest time to value and are the easiest for CMOs to adopt. Supporting processes follow, with forecast, inventory, batch release and quality event collaboration. Ad hoc processes such as production order collaboration, performance and contract management, and in-process data visibility take longest to pay off and to adopt, and that's where a network platform across several CMOs, such as Blue Yonder, fits.

A north star: control over the external network

The north star is control, visibility and transparency over the external supply chain, built through digitalization and standardization. Planning gives you the long-term direction, and partner integration gives you grip on the shorter horizon to ensure the actual plan gets executed. The route runs downstream to upstream: transport first, then warehouses and distributors, then external manufacturing.

How many layers to integrate depends on scale, complexity, expected growth and strategy. Supply chains are digitalizing in every industry, and for a biotech, with strict compliance and a fully external network, it matters even more. The longer you wait, the more complex and costly implementation becomes, and the more growth you put at risk. So even if it's only the first layer, digitalization should start the moment you're commercial. From working with many biotechs, I see the market moving in this direction.

Lastly, the effort you invest in maturing your planning capabilities won't fully pay off if execution doesn't mature at the same pace. Biotechs that don't standardize and digitalize both their planning and execution layers will fall behind and eventually lose competitiveness.

Testing your own network

1. Do you know your actual transit times per lane, and what you paid against the rate card last quarter? If not, Transport Orchestration is probably your first step.
2. Can you see which stock at your warehousing partners and distributors is released and available per market? If that takes a round of emails, Warehousing & Distribution Orchestration should be next.
3. When a CMO batch slips by two weeks, when do you hear about it, and how long until you can adjust shipments and distribution? If the answer is "when stock runs low", External Manufacturing Orchestration becomes relevant.

Planning looks ahead, and partner integration makes sure you can monitor execution by gaining E2E visibility.

In the final article, I'll bring this series together and look at how Helion™, the biotech planning application we've built at Bluecrux, helps you build the first planning capability, commercial supply planning, and how it integrates with your external manufacturing network.

Do you recognize the same order of integration layers in your organization? Which one would you expect to be the hardest to integrate?