Interview Questions and Answers on Supply Chain Management
Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Management is a core part of pharmaceutical industry. They maintain the inventory up-to-date as per company requirements. A list of common interview questions and answers on supply chain management are mentioned below:
Q. What is supply chain planning?
Supply chain planning involves the processes and strategies used to optimize the delivery of goods, services and information from supplier to end customer, balancing supply and manufacturing demand.
Supply chain plan cover a lot of core areas of a pharmaceutical industry including inventory management, new product development, capacity planning, plant design, logistics support etc.
A typical workflow for smooth supply chain plan
- Design a plan for smooth supply
- Implement the monthly plan cycle for smooth supply
- Embedding across 3-4 monthly planning cycles
Q. What are the major job responsibilities of a supply chain professional?
- Collaborates with other departments and stakeholders to identify and maintain resources needed to establish and provide an effective supply chain.
- Develops and maintains detailed inventories of materials and supplies located in the company, at sites, and in the factory.
- Work on forecasts and inventories, keeping an accurate record of the process and analyzing performance.
- Manage and minimize the risks (for example operational or reputational) that could affect or interrupt the supply chain.
- Management of supplier relationships and development of partnerships to ensure efficient use of resources and effective material and component supply practices.
- Monitors the performance of suppliers, assessing their ability to meet quality and delivery requirements; identifies and qualifies new suppliers in collaboration with other departments.
Q. What do you mean by SRM?
Supplier relationship management (SRM) is a business initiative that many companies undertake to build mutually beneficial relationships with suppliers.
Read details: SRM in Supply Chain Management
Q. What are the points to be considered for pharmaceutical supplier validation?
- Logistics
- Quality
- People
- Management
- Security
- Resources
- Data
Q. What is a Letter of Credit (LC)?
A letter of credit is a financial tool used in international trade for ensuring payment. It acts as a guarantee between the buyer and seller, ensuring that the seller will receive the agreed-upon payment and the buyer will receive the goods or services as promised.
Q. What are the phases of a supplier lifecycle?
- Select a supplier
- Qualification request
- Receive the material and R&D evaluation
- Prepare a questionnaire and send to Supplier
- Analyze the material quality and GMP requirements
- Site audit (physical or online)
- Provisional approval of vendor
- Final approval of vendor based on the large scale/commercial data
- Periodic assessment of vendor (site audit or desktop audit)
Read details: Supplier Lifecycle Management in Pharmaceutical Industry
Q. What is the API checklist for vendor assessment?
- Name of the material (API)
- Certificate of Analysis (COA) of the material
- Approved DMF/EDMF (by USFDA/EMA) for the material
- Compendia reference (BP/EP/USP/JP)
- Manufacturing process/synthesis way
- Any specialized manufacturing equipment used
- Shelf life of the material
- Packing quantity (minimum and maximum) & Packaging material
- Storage condition of the material
- Any sensitivity of the material (metal, oxygen etc.)
- Established in-process control is available or not
- Which type of solvent used during manufacture/synthesis
- Residual solvent statement availability
- Elemental impurities declaration
- N-nitosamine impunity deceleration
- Availability of solvent recovery procedure
- Any animal origin raw material used during synthesis
- Microbial analysis report
- Adequate stability data which is justify shelf life/ expiry date/ retest date.
- Validated test method
- Typical batch size
- Any precaution for material handling (MSDS)
Q. Why vendor audit is required?
A vendor audit is conducted to evaluate and assess the performance, reliability, and compliance of your vendors or suppliers.
Q. What do youmean by SKU in the Supply Chain?
SKU stands for a stock-keeping unit. It is related to the inventory management field. When anyone say SKU, it refers to a particular item stored in a particular place in the inventory.
Read also:
