Day 5 - Zuellig Pharma

Today was a very enlightening day. Nobody ever knew what the distributor does apart from distribution of products, what more a pharmacist in the distributor line? I used to think the distribution part is normally outsourced because the company does not have enough lorries or staff to handle this part, but it's in fact, more than meets the eye.

Our morning started off with a small session with the logistics department. We were briefed on how pharmaceutical companies obtain their products and distribute them nationwide. For MSD, any many other companies, the Hub office (Singapore in MSD's case) imports the manufactured and repackaged products and then passes it on to Zuellig Pharma, which then distributes it to not only Malaysia, but also many regions in Asia. Any order of products in bulks have to be done about 6 months before the import date. So you can imagine how closely the logistics department have to liaise with the marketing department, whether to order more of this product, or reduce those orders based on market demand.

So how significant is the distributor's role actually? Not only providing a huge warehouse and many lorries, the distributor also helps the final redressings to comply with the local country's requirements. For instance, the hologram is a requirement only in Malaysia, therefore the holograms will be added on by the distributor (Zuellig in this case) before being packaged for distribution. Labelling may also be done by the distributor. Another significant role is the carrying of cold-chain products such as vaccines, injectables and certain type of suppositories. These products need to be stored between 2-8 degrees Celcius, from the time they are "born" till the time they are used. So yes, they do have a huge "refridgerator-like" cold part to keep those stuffs.

One very significant yet not top-of-the-mind of the role of distributors is the disposal of write-off products, which are expired, rejected, non-saleable, or even returned by pharmacies just because nobody wants to buy from them! (Of course just a few units la not the whole bulk of it) Even small pills like antihistamine pills cannot be thrown in the rubbish bin. All of them have to be incinerated. You even need a waste management certificate each time you incinerate something, and also with a government officer as a witness! The incineration is also done elsewhere, so it needs transportation as well.

We proceeded to Zuellig at about 10am. More of the logistics stuff will be explained below. The main warehouse is at Bukit Jelutong, Shah Alam, which even our mentor had to "waze" to get there!

Bukit Jelutong, Taman Perindustrian is the place we were heading to!

Many MSD staff never even seen Zuellig before, so again if you can, join IPEP cuz it's really worth it! Why it's there? Cuz it's near main highways, in which you can get products to every state in Peninsula overnight. Why this is important? It will be explained below. It's also in central Peninsula, near Port Klang, where all of the imported products are brought in. There are also warehouses in Sabah and Sarawak to cater for East Malaysia. 

Zuellig Pharma from far....it IS huge.

That's the warehouse

The lobby

Upon arrival, we were greeted by Boon Sia, the regulatory pharmacist (wait, why does Zuellig need one?). We were brought to the meeting room, which is called Hip-Hip room! 

We were of course surprised with this childish term in a big company! It's actually a room with a fold-able divider that connects with another adjacent room. That room is called "Hooray" room. See the connection?

We were then briefed on the general info of the company, on dealing with principal suppliers as well as customer services. New terminologies! Principal suppliers are those pharma companies that supply products, like MSD etc etc. Customers of Zuellig are general practitioners (GP), pharmacies, sometimes hypermarkets....basically any outlet that Zuellig distributes to, of course they must have a valid poisons license to receive from Zuellig, if not, any little kedai runcit (retail store) can buy from the distributors!

The principals department designated certain teams to deal with specific principals, so it's like one team for MSD, one team for ABC. They update the principals on stock flow, back order (returned goods), expiry stock, and even manage samples of product for let's say, the NPCB to do analysis. Customer service department deals with complaints not only from the customers, but also end-users (the public) who can also complain to Zuellig if something is wrong with their product. They also review the customers' accounts every hour to see whether there is any credit order yet to be settled, so if the customers have not paid their invoice, distribution will not proceed.

So where does the pharmacist come in? In the distributor line, before the place is built, you will need pharmacists to advice on stuff like storage conditions, good manufacturing practice etc. But most of them are needed in the regulatory department. Regulatory pharmacists here not only have to deal with the bureau on approvals of the distribution processes, handling of poisons, GMP and so on, they also have to guard those potentially-abused drugs with their lives! Well not saying you have to be a security guard, but whenever these drugs need to be transported, you need to be there, to sign, to approve. There is even a specially-made cage area to store these drugs (which are in bulks of hundreds of units), and they even have to employ armed guards to escort the staff carrying these drugs into the lorry, and also to sit in the lorry to guard the lorry until the products reach the customers.

On top of that, Zuellig Pharma also runs their own line of OTC products, which also needs to be registered and approved. I'm not sure I've mentioned this, but when a product is registered, a Dossier (a large file containing details about everything under the sky about the product) needs to be compiled by these regulatory pharmacists. The regulatory pharmacists here also need to be well versed in the laws governing pharmaceutical products. There are Acts (like main titles stating the law) and Regulations (which elaborates on the Acts). This is very important as simple things like which customers are legit and which are not, can really affect the reputation of the distributor.

Regulatory pharmacists also deal with the government on laws and regulations. For example, with recent developments on the Medical Device Act in Malaysia, regulatory pharmacists also have to discuss with government authorities on details of the act. Some things like pacemaker, stethoscope and even gloves and syringes are confirmed as medical devices, but how about vaccine injections?  Spectacles? Contact lenses? The act requires the license code to be imprinted onto the product itself, so if contact lenses were approved, are they really going to print those letters and numbers onto the lenses?

Another interesting thing we learned is that codeine, which used to be highly monitored (you need to record your name, IC no. etc. to buy codeine), no longer needs to be recorded like ephedrine, pseudoephedrine, dextromethorphan, buprenorphine etc. It could be because the drug addicts do not find codeine that desirable anymore, so it is no longer that BIG a threat as an abused drug. And yes, the government can do a spot-check on Zuellig anytime to check how many exactly does Zuellig have of these controlled drug, and as the pharmacist-in-charge, you can't misplace even one, or you need to make a police report.

Distributors actually also have to carry out life-saving roles! As the pharmacist-in-charge there, a certain number of emergency products must be on standby 24/7, reserved for emergency cases, meaning you can't tell people that you don't have the stock. Often there are emergency calls from hospitals requiring certain products. That is why having Zuellig Pharma centrally and with delivery time at most overnight so important in the distributor line.

After that, we toured around the warehouse.

Right before the tour, Boon Sia explained the warehouse's video

The most fascinating part was that how complicated things are simplified so that workers can comply to them easily and effectively. For example, they utilize barcodes on totes (plastic boxes that holds products), racks, pallets (aiya go google it la), and all the workers have to do is to scan the rack, tote or pallet that is needed and transport it to its destination. Each worker has sort of a "pager" on their hand which they receive the next task that is given by the computer. The barcodes also help the computer to know where are each of the products are, are going to, or have reached to other points of the warehouse. I really hope I had a photo right now to show you all.

Other simple things like using coloured tapes. Friday was a yellow tapes day. So all products going out for distribution on that day had a yellow tape adhered to it. So if one sees a green taped box or other colours which is not yellow, straight away you will know something is wrong. The workers also wear coloured outfit with a specific number for that staff, so its easy to identify which area that staff works at, and is also easy to refer to that staff, like "Today, I saw staff number 29 not wearing proper shoes" like that.

The pallets are lifted by forklifts (google it). The drivers operating them can't just be any staff, they need to go for driving test specially for forklifts.  In other words, they need a license to drive forklifts! So you can imagine us trying to "cross roads" or moving away from forklifts that were reversing. The racks are up to 6 rows tall, so some staffs are also trained to transport boxes from the topper most row. They even have to wear safety harness! Imagine the risk involved in this work!

Oh, not forgetting to mention, we also saw the cubicles of the principal accounts department and the customers service department. The customer service department is as big as, I think, F3C09? They even have a TV screen showing real-time data of customer complaints, enquiries etc. They even have a gym in Zuellig!

One of the mega operations of Zuellig is annual stock count. Meaning, to obtain the number of each and every stock in the whole warehouse. This takes about 3 days straight, normally from Fri to Sunday. Zuellig will stop transaction on that period, and workers (as well as pharmacists) will have to do stock check until the night. Every product needs to have at least 2 ppl checking at the same time, lots of signing, approving, counting....I think its like counting everything you have in IKEA, just that every product is the size of a lightbulb, roughly?

Of course, there is pest and animal control. If people found out that there were cats, rats, flies, or even birds inside the warehouse....no not even if's. That is why there's so many mechanisms to prevent this. For flies, they installed many of those light traps; for animals, they have the receiving bay separated by 2 doors, so that there is an additional barrier to prevent these animals from "sneaking in". The air in the warehouse is also higher in pressure, so air gushes out when the doors are open, preventing birds from flying in. Even the platform is higher than the ground level to prevent flood waters from coming in. For rats, we were told that when the rats feed on the poison traps placed all around the warehouse, the poison dehydrates the rodent. This makes them go outside the warehouse to find sources of water, and at the same time, the poison causes internal haemorrhage, causing the rat to die outside the warehouse. Clever, or cruel? =O

There's just so much more, maybe we will need a part 2. Or maybe you need to come to IPEP. We'll do our best to share what we can! =D

Hi, Sui Lun!