2021 Supply Chain Innovation Award winner unveiled

The winner of this year’s 2021 Supply Chain Innovation Award (SCIA) was announced at CSCMP’s EDGE 2021 Supply Chain Conference & Exhibition in Atlanta, Georgia, in September. Vita Nosulenko, who works in business development at Farmasoft, a pharmaceutical logistics company, and Sergey Strashuk, senior technical advisor of procurement and supply chain at the medication management company Management Sciences for Health (MSH), received the award for developing a pilot program using a private pharmaceutical logistics company for last-mile delivery of HIV and TB medicines in the Ukraine.

In their submission, “Ukraine: Tapping a Private Fleet to Get Medicines to the Last Mile,” Nosulenko and Strashuk explained the pilot program’s evolution, methods, results, and lessons learned, along with recommendations for a national scale-up program. By enlisting the services of a private pharmaceutical logistics company for last-mile distribution of HIV and tuberculosis (TB) medicines, MSH’s approach aimed to streamline fragmented public sector logistics services while following supply chain best practices and improving patient outcomes.

The other top five proposals included:

• River Logic/Philip Morris International: “Digital Twins for the Win!” Cigarette and tobacco manufacturer Philip Morris International partnered with supply chain technology company River Logic to create a digital twin of its global manufacturing network. This technology runs forward-looking product sourcing optimization scenarios, which helps the company adapt faster to new market dynamics, reduce total landed cost, and more.
• Philip Morris International: “Welcome to the Future: E2E Planning Under a Single Global Synchronization Hub” Philip Morris International developed a synchronization hub—a digitally enabled global supply chain control tower—to drive the company’s end-to-end planning into a single solution. This innovation led to near real-time visibility for the company in more than 60 markets around the world and created a new ecosystem of suppliers, distributors, and direct-to-consumer channels.
• Controlant: “How Technology and Collaboration Ensure Successful COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution” Cold chain software-as-a-service provider Controlant developed an automated solution to help distribute vaccines on a global scale. The company’s solution was successful in using data and technology to help keep products (like vaccines) safe, minimize product loss, and speed up delivery.
• Holman Logistics: “From Science Fiction to Practical Implementation: AI Boosts Safety in the Warehouse” By harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) technology, logistics provider Holman Logistics, in partnership with technology provider OneTrack AI, was able to reduce warehouse safety incidents in nearly every safety category in fewer than three months, while allowing targeted coaching of forklift drivers.
• 6 River Systems: “Robotic Automation Helps NLS Increase Throughput 3X” Faced with a fluctuating labor force, e-commerce retail logistics solutions company National Logistics Services’ (NLS) introduced a flexible robotic automation solution from 6 River Systems, which helped increase its distribution facility’s throughput without making any major, permanent changes to its physical space or infrastructure.

Each year at the EDGE conference, CSCMP hosts the SCIA program, a live competition in which a panel of judges join conference attendees to hear presentations on innovative solutions and real-world results from top supply chain companies. The award program receives approximately 50 case study submissions each year.