Inventory Management and Control Of Deteriorating Pharmaceutical Products sing Industry 4.0

Pharmaceutical products are subject to adverse effects of deterioration, which impose high costs on healthcare systems, insurance companies, and patients; they have caused severe environmental concerns as well. Typically, all healthcare systems require high-quality services to meet the emergency needs of patients. But providing such services entails high-quantity orders, which in turn amplifies the deterioration rate of drugs and their associated costs. Accordingly, to diminish the deterioration rate of drugs, it is essential to have efficient management of the logistic network as well as tools that support the communication and data gathering throughout the network. In this paper, content analysis is carried out to explain how the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) and the paradigm of integration and cooperation in the supply chain could be used to address the challenges of the pharmaceutical Supply Chain (PSC) by emphasizing on the deterioration of drugs. Also, the paper provides guidelines for the future of productivity and growth in the PSC, utilizing the cyber-physical tools of Industry 4.0.