Modelling the cost-benefit impact of integrated product modularisation and postponement in the supply chain for pharmaceutical mass customisation

Journal article, 2023

Realisation of pharmaceutical product and production systems capable of delivering product customisation cost-effectively is essential for adding value to patients and society through improved tailoring of therapies to individuals relative to current mass-produced products. To address the continued lack of evidence-based system solutions, this study presents a holistic design framework and a novel computational platform for enabling design explorations of integrated pharmaceutical product and supply chain (SC) reconfiguration. The design and modelling framework developed herein takes an end-to-end SC perspective, adapts the mass customisation strategies of product modularisation and postponement, and demonstrates case study simulations based on real-life therapy and SC archetypes. The cost-effectiveness assessment with the derived integrated systems computational platform confirm that product modularisation drives patient benefit through variety provision and that postponement drives cost reduction in an end-to-end SC. A novel insight is therefore that both product modularisation and postponement, in an integrated manner, are required for maximising cost-effective customisation. Moreover, the computational simulations, founded and modelled on real-life scenarios, provide design requirements for reconfigurable product and SC systems in a pharmaceutical context. In all, these findings are imperative for providing guidance on integrated pharmaceutical product and production systems design and mass customisation/ mass personalisation/mass individualisation realisation.