Kevin Cook

Exec Director Supply Chain
Merck

Kevin Cook is currently Executive Director for Supply Chain Development at Merck, responsible for process, system and inventory management improvements at Merck. Kevin’s team leads the global deployment of improved supply chain management processes, deploys new SAP-based capabilities and leads Inventory management planning for the company. Kevin’s team leads the process community of practices at Merck and last year delivered over $300MM in inventory savings annually. Kevin has over 28 years in the industry working at Bristol Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson and currently at Merck, across Pharm, Device and Consumer sectors. Kevin has held leadership and operating roles in Supply Chain management, Global Logistics, Marketing and IT.

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Day 2

Saturday, May 9th, 2015

10:15 Building Flow And Responsiveness Into Your Supply Chain: Moving From A Batch To Flow Mindset Can Drive Better Supply Chain Responsiveness, Lower Inventory Levels And Risk To Your Supply Chain

Pharma supply chains have been built traditionally on the batch mentality - produce at the largest batch possible and avoid change-overs to maximize cost absorption and P&L contribution. Procurement has been similarly incentivized to buy in quantities that optimized price and contract terms, without understanding how these practices can impact the supply chain flow. While these strategies have optimized local metrics and measures they impact the ability of the supply chain to operate as a repetitive and flexibility entity that optimizes working capital and service to the
customer on an end to end basis. This discussion will focus on the building blocks for creating flow in the supply chain by using case examples, examine obstacles and challenges and what benefits to expect.

• The Case for Flow
- building smaller, more responsive supply chain replenishment quantities and cycles – why customers are asking for it.
• Traditional Metric Implications
– How end to end flow impacts traditional supply chain metrics.
– How to think end to end and focus on balanced scorecards
• Case Example
– Results of moving to more frequent replenishment patterns based on customer demand. Benefits, obstacles and lessons learned.
• The key steps to get started
- Implementing a global constant-make replenishment model.