Inventory visibility assessment for pharmaceutical supply chains

Inventory Visibility (InV) is critical for most companies involved in the pharmaceutical supply chain as they compete against each other within the chain. Possessing a richer InV is a competitive advantage for these firms to continuously improve their supply chain's performance. This paper seeks to analyze InV and to provide a theoretical model based on Entropy theory. Visibility Channel (VC) has been defined to form a measurable element for Visibility Entropy which is a novel quantitative method of objectively measuring InV for the continuous improvement of supply chain performance. An experimental result for quantitatively assessing InV for a pharmaceutical supply chain is also discussed to demonstrate the viability of the method for quantifying InV. Several possible research issues are identified and discussed for future research.