On June 18, 2012, the Public Research Centre Henri Tudor was very honoured to host in its premises the conference organised by the Indian Business Chamber of Luxembourg and dedicated to the role of the Supply Chain in the World’s Pharmaceutical Market. The objective of the conference was to highlight best practices in Supply Chain Management and to explore partnership opportunities between India and Luxembourg in that field.

The evening’s speakers were:

Dr Ajit Shetty, former chairman of the Board of Directors of Janssen Pharmaceutica Belgium, the former Corporate Vice President of the J&J Enterprise Supply Chain of Johnson & Johnson in the USA and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Cilag GmbH International in Switzerland. Dr Shetty has served as a Board member for various organisations in Belgium, USA and has won a number of awards for his work.

Mr Daniel Liebermann, as a member of the Ministry of the Economy and Foreign Trade, is responsible for the development of the logistics industry in Luxembourg.

And finally, Mr Clemens Abt, president and CEO of Trust Advisory Services. Mr Abt has over 30 years experience in the field of logistics, more precisely within the top 3 global logistics companies and has been asked by the Luxembourg Government to act as a consultant for the further development of Luxembourg’s pharmaceutical supply chain logistics links with countries in Asia and Europe.

For CRP Henri Tudor, the conference was the occasion to present its TRANSPORT & LOGISTICS programme focussing on the main innovation challenges faced by the industry. These challenges include:

• Logistics chains that are internationalising and in which local and regional players must be able to integrate themselves
• Environmental considerations becoming increasingly important in decision-making and
• An industry where jobs are becoming more specialised, resulting in a growing need for training.

To meet these challenges, the programme mobilises key players around the themes of sectorial strategy and European integration, innovative and sustainable logistics chains, and co-modal transport.

One of the main activities of the programme is networking, especially as TUDOR is a founding member of the Cluster for Logistics. Another important activity is policy support as illustrated by the prospective study that Tudor is carrying out on the strategic development of the Luxembourg logistics sector. The programme also focusses on collaborative and commissioned research as well as specialised training. In partnership with the University of Lorraine, the programme offers a Master’s degree in Global Supply Chain Management.

Regarding the research activities of the programme, two flagship projects are worth to be mentioned:

The first is WEASTFLOWS, which aims to improve and enhance freight logistics in North West Europe and to encourage a move from an over-reliance on road haulage to the more sustainable modes of rail, short-sea shipping and river transportation. Funded in part by the INTERREG IVB NWE programme, the project involves 22 partners and 19 observers from countries including France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the UK and China.

The project ECOLOGISTICS, for its part, focuses on raising awareness and providing opportunities for companies to optimise their freight operations by using standardised collaborative ICT tools. The tools developed by Ecologistics will enable improved data exchange between players from different levels of the Supply Chain, with a focus on SMEs which have little time and no internal resources to adapt their current procedures to meet the international and standardised transport flow. This project is also co-funded by INTERREG IV NWE and is supported by 12 partners from Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and Luxembourg.