There were little over one billion people on the planet in 1886, the year Johnson & Johnson (J&J) was founded. 131 years later, J&J now provides daily services to slightly over a billion people globally. The corporation manufactures many goods essential to people’s everyday lives and professional endeavors, including several well-known consumer brands, life-saving medications, and important service delivery components.
It is more difficult than ever to keep up the supply chain that ensures all these different items get to where they need to go.
The company transformed its supply chain into a platform that promotes innovation across the board to better serve the demands of J&J’s expanding client base. This is no simple endeavor, given J&J’s size and breadth. With over 60,000 employees and 350 distribution locations worldwide, J&J fulfills more than 100,000 orders daily, providing goods and services to millions of homes, shops, pharmacies, and hospital operating rooms.
More and more futuristic-looking technologies, such as self-driving vehicles and intelligent robots, are making headlines daily.
These developments mark the start of the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution, which will transform how we live and work. While the Third Industrial Revolution gave billions of people access to digital technology, the Fourth Industrial Revolution is distinguished by a variety of cutting-edge technologies that have an impact on all economies and industries and provide new career opportunities for those in the fields of manufacturing, design, and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Finding and deploying these new technologies has become a top concern for businesses all over the world because they have the potential to impact every part of the company, including operations, production, distribution, and customer experience. However, some people have adapted more quickly than others.
To hasten a more thorough and broad use of these technologies in manufacturing, the World Economic Forum and McKinsey & Co. developed the Global Lighthouse Network in 2018. Ninety manufacturers from various industry sectors have so far been given Lighthouse certifications for their use of technology from the Fourth Industrial Revolution to boost production and efficiency while also practicing environmental stewardship.
The World Economic Forum has selected the Lighthouse honorees as global leaders who have embraced and integrated innovations to pave the way for others. Lighthouses have been used to help navigation for thousands of years.
Two new Lighthouse certifications have just been given to Johnson & Johnson, one for its orthopedics business’ commitment to end-to-end client connection and the other for its London-based Vision Care order-fulfillment processes. The firm now holds seven Lighthouse Certifications, more than any other company, in pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and consumer health.
According to Johnson & Johnson’s Executive Vice President and Chief Global Supply Chain Officer Kathy Wengel, “Improving the end-to-end customer experience is the key to success.” While maintaining our commitment to quality, enhancing sustainability benefits for the planet, and improving cycle time and visibility for the patients, consumers, and customers we are honored to serve, advanced manufacturing technologies contribute to greater efficiencies and connectivity across Johnson & Johnson.
- Johnson & Johnson DePuy Synthes Advance Case Management in Bridgewater, New Jersey.
Received Lighthouse designation for putting in place a fully digital platform that guarantees orthopedic surgeons get the ideal combination of useful instruments and gadgets for each patient, reducing waste and speeding up operating room setup time.
- Johnson & Johnson Vision Care Order-Fulfillment Operations in London
Received Lighthouse designation for Creating a one-stop shop for order administration has improved the customer experience.
- Johnson & Johnson DePuy Synthes in Suzhou, China
Received Lighthouse designation for establishing a seamless digital platform that boosts connection and productivity and benefits the business’s expansive operations
Cognitive Automation
Data is at the core of Johnson & Johnson’s goal for a more intelligent supply chain. Johnson & Johnson can send data crawlers into the supply chain to collect and index massive volumes of data based on pre-set criteria because of its strong IT skills.
Depending on the insight that advanced planning is trying to attain, it is possible to develop an analytics layer that can produce various data tools, which can then be used to create a number, such as a prediction. To accurately notify customers of how long it will take for their purchase to arrive, the data may be utilized, for instance, to determine the typical durations it takes for a certain product to complete its supply chain trip.
As an alternative, it might alert teams to any supply chain nodes where performance is routinely falling short of expectations. Once they have been located, these inefficiencies may be corrected, and ongoing evaluations can be done to ensure the required changes have been made.
Let’s start with something easy, or at least somewhat easy, Ackerman suggested. “You place an order. When they’re going to get it, either you or the person listening wants to know. Very basic, correct? Except that it’s incredibly difficult. When someone orders widget A over six months, they will often ask when it will arrive. Did we truly give them the correct date when we said it would be on this day? In reality, you’ll discover that most of the time, individuals aren’t.”
Your brand’s performance may be improved with the customer experience by implementing an intelligent supply chain that uses automation and data. It’s encouraging to see well-known companies like Johnson & Johnson set the bar in this arena.
