MedTurn VP of Operations Shares His Commitment to “Client First” through Operational Excellence
Client First. Period. Since joining the company four years ago, Client First has been the message that Harold Anderson, Vice President of Operations, has not only talked, but also walked for the 270 CLS MedTurn operations and warehouse associates that are under his direction. Harold is responsible for the Memphis, TN; Fort Worth, TX; Indianapolis, IN; and Toronto, Canada healthcare facility operations. With over thirty years experience in executive management positions in both operations and business development with well recognized and respected companies such as Exel and Target, Harold has a keen understanding of the role that the operations team plays to ensure client satisfaction. “We service over 150 healthcare clients with different business needs, said Harold. Operational Execution is critical to delivering on the services that clients expect.”

Harold summarizes his beliefs into three main points that must happen to keep the “Client First”.

• Operationally Execute on Services. If we meet and exceed the expectations of our clients on the existing services that we provide, we realize that this could lead to new opportunities and growth with our clients.

• Continuously Improve Efficiency and Quality. It is important for us to always look for ways to enhance our services, yet keep costs to a minimum as a way to bring added value to our clients and remain competitive in our marketplace.

• Build an Internal Philosophy of Client First . Through on-going training and communication, every person in the organization understands their important role in meeting client needs and that the Client is First.

All clients are encouraged to visit and tour our returns processing facilities and meet with Harold and his team to discuss your operational needs.

MedTurn Attending HDMA 2006 Distribution Management Conference & Technology Expo
MedTurn will be attending the upcoming HDMA 2006 Distribution Management Conference & Technology Expo. The conference will be held on June 7 - 10 in Phoenix, AZ. If you are planning to attend, please take time to meet with the following MedTurn representatives that will be at the Conference:

Steve Maki, Steve.Maki@inmar.com
Charlie Makowski, Charlie.Makowski@inmar.com

For more information on the conference visit http://www.healthcaredistribution.org/meetings/distribution.asp

FMI Pharmacy & NACDS Highlight Need for Disaster Recovery Plan
With the hurricane season fast approaching and the aftermath of last year’s Katrina and Rita disasters still fresh on our minds, much discussion has occurred at some of the industry events held by the FMI and the NACDS. Jeff Noddle, CEO SUPERVALU, recently issued a “Call to Action” for industry coordination on disaster relief that was described in the article in Supermarket News. He challenged the industry to develop a new template to guide the industry in future relief efforts.

At the NACDS Supply Chain and Logistics conference, many retailers and manufacturers shared their disaster recovery plans. They also shared how they had modified those plans based on learnings form Hurricane Katrina. The main point made was TO BE PREPARED! Below is some good advice given during the various presentations made by both retailers and manufacturers.  

• Conduct scenario planning – What happens if distribution network is destroyed? What happens if headquarters or customer service is destroyed?
• Hold January-April planning meetings
• Pre Build assortments & conduct warehouse meetings
• Prepare for product delivery challenges – redirect when roads are out, deliver in daylight only, use police escorts, add a second driver to help with unloading
• Understand and plan for those products that are in higher demand such as ice, cell phone automotive chargers, cell phone batteries, battery operated TVs, pet food
• Activate 1-800 # for associates
• Coordinate reopening of stores
• Coordinate local, state, and federal communication

Most recently at the FMI Pharmacy Conference, Bob Dufour, Director of Pharmacy, Professional Services and Government Relations for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc and Michael LeBanc, Director of Pharmacy, Sales and Business Development for Winn-Dixie Stores jointly spoke on structuring an effective disaster plan for pharmacy.

Summarized below are some of the key points made during their presentation that can be helpful in establishing your disaster plan.

As you start to develop or update your internal disaster recovery plans, CLS and our MedTurn healthcare division are willing to participate in your plans. With over forty reverse logistics facilities located throughout the United States and two of those being specifically dedicated to pharmaceutical returns, our company may be able to offer coordination points or product handling services for the centralized disaster relief required in your disaster recovery planning.

If you would like to discuss this further, please contact Jennifer Mauldin, EVP Business Development or Rich Fanning, EVP Operations.

For more information on hurricanes, visit http://hurricanes.noaa.gov. To view a map of all landfalling hurricanes from 1950-2005 Click here .

MedTurn Successfully Completes Disaster Recovery Test
According to Gartner Group, an unscheduled outage at a typical Fortune 1000 company lasts 4 hours and costs an average of $330,000 per outage. You can just image what would happen to an organization if its data center was destroyed by a natural disaster like a tornado, hurricane, or flood.

Stratapult, CLS and MedTurn’s internal information technology group, contracts with a business continuity company, SunGard, to ensure that the business critical data and systems can be recovered in the event that a disaster renders our corporate facility or data center unusable. SunGard creates at a remote facility the hardware configuration necessary for Stratapult to re-load the company’s software and databases to resume normal operations.

On an annual basis Stratapult retests a portion of this process for its internal and external customer base to ensure that its backup processes are operating properly and the hardware at the SunGard hot backup site is synchronized and compatible with the current Stratapult infrastructure.

This year the focus in CLS was on the CSCS and MedTurn systems. We simulated a disaster occurring on February 20th, instructing the business to capture screen shots and reports on that date so that they could be verified during the disaster testing phase.

A team of Stratapult operations, server and network people arrived at SunGard’s Philadelphia facility on March 10th with the backups taken on February 20th . They loaded the backups on the SunGard hardware on March 11th and established network connectivity to our established “hot-site facility”, the Inmar Training rooms in PC2. (The company also has established a real disaster hot site office location in Mooresville, NC, capable of supporting about 200 associates.)

On the morning of March 12, 2006 the Stratapult IT Support teams for CSCS and MedTurn verified that all appropriate systems were loaded and accessible. In the afternoon, CSCS and MedTurn users arrived with a set of test scripts for each application function and verified that the each application’s results were identical to the actual reports originally generated on February 20th.

Even though the testing was conducted during the time of the ACC Championship game, the 60 plus participants all went home winners.

Need Help With a Reverse Logistics Challenge?
If so, contact us and let us work with you to develop a solution that best fits your needs. Contact Jennifer Mauldin or Sharon Joyner-Payne.