A playbook for early warning approaches for small and medium-sized pharmaceutical manufacturing companies in Switzerland

Abstract

This thesis examines whether it is possible to develop a playbook that will help identify early warnings of potential supply chain risks and suggest approaches for small and medium-sized pharmaceutical manufacturing companies in Switzerland. This research work looks the early warning approaches for supply chain risk management for small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs). This work also assesses the supply chain risk management (SCRM) frameworks and the tools available to the decision-makers to handle their SCRM requirements. Literature review and qualitative interviews showed that there exists a need for a tool for proactive SCRM in companies and it remains an unfulfilled requirement for the decision-makers. The prototype tool developed as the “playbook” integrated the SCRM steps with early warnings into a modified SCRM process framework. The playbook used two sample situations in supply risks to showcase the use of the steps of the modified SCRM steps to initially two interviewees. Based on the feedback received from these two interviews the playbook was presented to six participants via qualitative interviews. The feedback suggested potential adoption needs for the tool by the companies. Opportunities for improvement and potential for future work was also suggested to improve the playbook. The consolidation of these findings shows that a playbook for early warning approaches for small and medium sized pharmaceutical manufacturing companies in Switzerland was possible. The adoption of the playbook application would help the target companies either develop or bolster their existing SCRM framework.