Transportation challenges are complicated in the pharmaceutical industry. Temperature monitoring, theft, counterfeiting and diversion are problems plaguing the supply chain. Temperature control and monitoring is key to ensuring efficacy of medications. The ability to track and trace medications during transportation allows companies to reduce theft and diversion. Track and trace technology also greatly reduces counterfeit medications from entering the supply chain as medications can be verified once they reach intended healthcare facility.

This stage involves several areas as following:

1. Receiving: This step includes product tagging (using RFIDs or barcodes). This will allow each case/pallet to be identified with information such as product name/type, manufacturer, expiry date, storage conditions etc. and logged into inventory.
2. SKU Management: Information about each type of medicine needs to be stored in the database to cross reference storage conditions and expiration dates etc.
3. Storage: The warehouse needs to be divided into zones and each case/pallet stored in proper zone. Each zone needs to be monitored to maintain proper conditions and maintain the cold chain if necessary. Vu360 state of the art monitoring includes thermal imaging. This permits accurate temperature readings across a wide area of the warehouse on an item by item basis.
4. RFID-based Scanning: This level of scrutiny can prevent theft and human errors including shipping the wrong material.
5. Order Processing: Material can be assigned to work order but instead of normal first-in- first-out scheme, more intelligent algorithms based on expiry date and other parameters can be used.
6. Shipment: RFID readers at shipping doors can make sure that the right material is shipped against different work orders etc.

The Vu360 Solution is fully capable of being extended to end-point facilities, such individual hospitals, while maintaining full centralized control. The system can be expanded to hospitals and other healthcare facilities to ensure proper receipt and inventory control.