The COVID-19 pandemic severely impacted many businesses around the globe.
At Smithers, our teams needed to ensure that despite the ongoing challenges we were still able to provide the high levels of customer service, accurate data, expertise and on-time delivery that clients require.
Smithers’ Distribution Testing facilities in Leatherhead, UK, took a novel approach to handling work, accelerating distribution test work for vaccine products and critical medical device packaging projects to support the global effort to combat the virus.
In this article, we explore how our Distribution Testing team overcame many challenges and set in place rigorous processes to be best-placed should a similar event occur in the future.
When the COVID-19 pandemic started to become a global issue, it was clear that the medical sector would be working at speed to provide life-saving equipment, vaccines and other items to combat the short- and medium-term impacts of the virus.
Smithers’ Distribution Testing team supported international healthcare providers, pharmaceutical organisations and medical device manufacturers in this time of crisis. Projects were large in scale and short on time. As such, our teams had to pivot to prioritise critical, life-saving projects.
Clients needed to understand how their new products would cope with the rigours of the supply chain and validate their performance.
An example of this was testing to demonstrate packaging compliance with ADR Packing Instruction 650 (applicable to UN 3373, Biological substance, Category B) on COVID-19 testing kit returns for both individual home use and for bulk consignments from testing centres. The packaging had to demonstrate compliance with specific performance criteria before being put to use in the pandemic.
As well as this, the team worked on various projects, such as focusing on damage reduction and thermal performance of packs throughout the supply chain. Our team was able to simulate real-world and worst-case supply routes and transportation methods across the globe.
As our laboratory operations and project timelines are all mapped out digitally, the team was able to quickly adjust schedules and balance workloads to enable our packaging experts to still be able to provide support to clients not involved in the pandemic relief.
Our Distribution Testing team took a pragmatic approach, and quickly initiated a hybrid or remote model of working for those who did not need to be in the laboratory.
We also implemented variable shift patterns for some of the team to ensure that they could operate in a safe, distanced environment, while still working to support clients’ objectives.
This sometimes meant sacrificing time with family or working longer/different schedules to make sure that projects could be completed on time.
Smithers implemented measures to reduce risk, ensuring rigorous adherence to hand washing and mask-wearing for those working in the laboratory. However, amidst these precautions, there were the heightened risks for those staff that needed to be on site to use the test equipment. Team members were putting themselves on the line to ensure that they could best help clients, and in turn support the global COVID-19 relief effort.
Our clients were navigating the global situation just as much as Smithers. Supply chain challenges and project delivery issues meant that sample delivery dates were uncertain; Smithers maintained a flexible working structure to accommodate these uncertainties.
Supply chain issues continue to be a bottleneck for some clients, so our team remains agile to ensure that critical projects can proceed, even when deadlines are tight.
When quoting for work our teams always give realistic timelines. Delivering accurate data on time is a cornerstone of Smithers’ values.
With the constantly evolving nature of the pandemic, working to accurate timelines was sometimes difficult, but something that was needed to be upheld to ensure that vital supply chain assessments and packaging testing could take place.
This set clear expectations to our clients and their customers of when new vaccines or other vital products could enter circulation.
Clear communication across the team was critical to ensuring Smithers Distribution Testing team was able to carry out projects for clients.
Both in the laboratory and working remotely, our teams fully embraced digital communication tools to make sure that communication levels were the same, or even greater than before the pandemic.
Clients were able to get continual updates on the status of projects and tap into a wealth of packaging knowledge and insights from our experts.
When dealing with life-saving novel vaccines, treatments and devices, confidentiality is critical.
Our teams take this very seriously, so ensure that they employ high levels of data security and client privacy when operating.
Throughout the challenges of the pandemic Smithers team members were able to put to the test and refine our working practices to ensure that clients received the highest quality of service, data, interpretation and guidance.
Our packaging testing and supply chain experts have decades of knowledge to help clients bring their products to market, even in the most difficult of circumstances.
The team partners with clients to understand the challenges they are facing and what they need to do to ensure confidence in their packaging designs. Our experts then perform simulated transit testing on these designs – replicating and accelerating real-life and worst-case scenarios.
Smithers experts monitor the packaging throughout testing, and review the inner components and product afterwards, to assess the overall performance. This is a rigorous process and ensures a complete understanding of how and why a package may/may not be suitable for planned supply routes.
For more information on how Smithers can support with ensuring confidence in packaging throughout the supply chain, please contact an expert.
