In 2018, Golder was selected by an international pharmaceutical company to audit its global supply chain manufacturers according to the parameters set forth by the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Initiative (PSCI).
PSCI is a group of pharmaceutical and healthcare companies who share a vision of better social, health, safety, and environmental outcomes in the communities where they operate. These companies have joined forces to promote responsible supply chain management and better business conditions across the industry. Golder is one of fourteen professional, independent third-party audit firms that have been approved to perform PSCI Audits. In 2017, Golder was approved as an Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) Assessor. Since that time, Golder has successfully completed hundreds of assessments for global companies around the world.
For this pharmaceutical company’s project, Golder’s EHS team completed more than 100 PSCI assessments in 28 countries using a “hub and spoke” approach, where client communications were maintained through a single Golder Global Program Manager (“the hub”). This “hub” served as the primary contact and worked through various communication channels (“the spokes”) with Golder’s EHS teams around the world to deliver consistent professional services within the respective project countries, using local languages and auditing customs.
Regular program reviews with the client supported continuous improvements in terms of audit planning and communications, technical quality, project delivery timeline, and overall site audit experience. Cost-efficiency was achieved by structuring the project team with a mix of strategic, technical, and administrative staff sharing a common project management platform that enabled centralised coordination and performance tracking of each individual audit.
One of the key challenges in this assignment was confirming that a consistent risk ranking system was being applied by different assessors and being consistently interpreted by the client and its suppliers. This alignment was only made possible with a rigorous and committed communications program that was supported by the various client and Golder team functions.
In addition to the assessments, Golder was also involved in the review of the proposed and completed follow-up corrective actions, in which both the client and its suppliers had to mutually recognise and agree to the relative constraints and benefits of the corrective actions. Our work is ongoing, and Golder is proud to be playing an active part in the client’s journey to achieve sustainable growth within the pharmaceutical industry.
