Speaker 1: Building resiliency within the healthcare supply chain. Joining us today to speak about that, Andrew Wang, Director of Healthcare and Industrial at Locus Robotics. Andrew, good to see you again.

Speaker 2: Welcome.

Speaker 1: Thanks, Russell. Well, I guess it's fair to say that every supply chain has got challenges, but let's talk specifically about the healthcare supply chain and those challenges that would be unique to it. What would you say they are?

Speaker 2: Absolutely, Russell. So with the healthcare supply chain, they've got a lot more rules and regulations, so they need to make sure they're capturing serialization, make sure they're capturing the correct lots when it comes to the product that they're distributing. They need to make sure that they're doing first in, first out, and making sure that the traceability is accountable and that their quality is perfect there.

Speaker 1: But at the same time, is it not the healthcare supply chain facing some of the same disruptive events that every other supply chain has had to deal with? The shortages because of the pandemic, Suez Canal, the geopolitical situation, the war between Russia and Ukraine, all of those types of things. Doesn't that healthcare supply chain still have to deal with those issues?

Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. Just like every other industry, the healthcare industry is seeing really rough supply chain issues. They're having issues with getting people in the door, right? So they have to do a lot more with a lot less. So making sure that they can get the product out the door in a timely manner. We're talking life and death situations for some of these companies. So the resiliency of the supply chain is extremely important there.

Speaker 1: One of the things that has occurred because of the pandemic is that we have had a major shift, a radical shift from in-person interaction, say at stores, to direct to consumer. More and more of us are buying things online. Well, that's true if we're dealing with shirts or maybe with some food items or this or that. But what about in the healthcare space? How has the pandemic impacted it?

Speaker 2: Well, I'm sure you've seen, too, in the last two years, there's been a lot more teleconferencing, videoconferencing for healthcare providers, right? You're taking your appointments at home and via telephone versus going into the doctor's office. And the supply chain is no different. So just like the consumer goods area, the customers are expecting pharmaceuticals and medical supplies and devices to get directly to their, ship directly to their homes as opposed to a pharmacy or to the hospital and receiving it at their house in a timely manner. And again, this is something that they're dependent on.

Speaker 1: But that leads to an interesting question, because you mentioned earlier the federal regulations that, quite frankly, you know, healthcare providers, pharmaceutical manufacturers, et cetera, have to comply with, et cetera. Now that there are more, perhaps more and more people who are buying their pharmaceuticals online or things are being distributed that way, how has the federal regulation impacted that? Or rather, how has it been able to comply with those federal regulations?

Speaker 2: Sure, absolutely. And that's where that quality really comes into play. So ensuring that they're fulfilling the right order is just that much more important, right? Without that extra check, ensuring that it gets it gets to the location, to its final destination, you know, without any sort of tampering or any sort of issues is just that much more important.

Speaker 1: Also, of course, there are temperature sensitive issues and that sort of thing, I should think. Well, let's talk about how healthcare operators are strengthening their supply chain capabilities. What do you say? Walk us through that.

Speaker 2: So to increase their resiliency and their consistency, I think what you're seeing is a lot of these healthcare companies and medical device companies are really starting to look into automation in general, in a broader sense, right? So automation can help make you more consistent. It helps your resiliency. It doesn't require as many people to make sure that the job is done. There's less human error involved. So you're seeing a lot of companies really start falling on to automation as a whole to help them make their supply chain more resilient.

Speaker 1: So, Andrew, I would imagine that the viewer wants to know more specifically what it is that Locus Robotics is doing in the healthcare space. So talk about that supply chain. What are you doing to contribute to that?

Speaker 2: What do you say? Absolutely. So Locus Robotics is a AMR solutions provider, autonomous mobile robots. We were founded by people from the warehouse industry who understand the pain points of logistics and supply chain. And what we do is we've been able to help supply chain healthcare companies to increase their productivity two to three X by utilizing a proprietary swarming methodology. This methodology has helped multiple medical device companies, healthcare companies to really improve their productivity and to build resilience in their operations as well. Robotics as a service provides the flexibility to allow a customer to scale up and down to meet their operational demands.

Speaker 1: That is a great innovation right there. Andrew, listen, I appreciate so very much you're having the time to sit down and speak with us, walk us through this important area. Thank you very much.

Speaker 2: Thank you, Russell.

Speaker 1: It's Andrew Wang, Locus Robotics, talking about resiliency in the healthcare supply chain. Thanks for watching.