The Study of Improving Logistics Effectiveness for Chinese Herbal Medicine using FMEA

• Main Authors: Pei-Wen Lin, 林培文
• Other Authors: Bai-Sheng Chen
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2013
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/87821066501464611138

碩士 === 德明財經科技大學 === 物流管理系 === 101 === In recent years, the health benefits of Chinese herbal medicines are being increasingly recognized and accepted by advanced countries. Thus there is increased demand for such medicinal products. The main ingredients used in Taiwan’s Chinese herbal medicinal products mostly come from China, thus if there are any problems along the manufacturing process such as operation controls (unsatisfactory quality checks) and environmental controls (unsatisfactory temperature and humidity controls), the potency of the products will be affected. This research aims to discover and offer recommendations to enhance delivery efficiency of Chinese herbal medicine products and reduce operation failures. As a result, to understand the potential risks of importing Chinese herbal medicinal products, the researcher first organized interviews with the subjects (selected companies) to understand the unique characteristics of Chinese herbal medicines better. It is also to gain insights into the overall logistics process of importing the medicines and identify potential ineffective operation models via the failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) method. After which establish an analytical list suitable for FMEA and gather opinions of experts by analyzing 3 parameters: severity, occurrence and detection. And finally, the research will determine the critical processes of the supply chain in the areas of severity degree, occurrence frequency and detection difficulty by referencing the how big or small the risk priority number (RPN) is. The research also proposed improvement recommendations so as to strengthen the overall performance of Chinese herbal medicinal product delivery. This research achieved the following conclusions: (1) after interviewing the companies, it is discovered that the delivery logistics of Chinese herbal medicinal products is much stricter than other products. The entire process- from transporting the ingredients from place of origin, to storing the products after importing, needs to follow special requirements necessary for the medicines; (2) companies should also include FMEA into their overall operation processes to discover the inadequacies of their logistics process. For example, if the manufacturing volume is too small, the time spent at customs is too long, or if unsatisfactory temperature control will affect the potency of the medicines; (3) finally, the research investigates 4 major aspects of the companies’ operations infrastructure, information, process and training and then offers improvement suggestions. The above aims to help the company improve their overall operation processes.