While a patient waits for a transfusion in a hospital in the Bajío region, and a thousand kilometers away, a nurse prepares a dose of insulin on the outskirts of Monterrey, a silent and precise network is put into action.
He doesn’t wear a white coat, but his precision is surgical: he’s the logistics of health , that gear that never stops and that, if it stops, can cost lives.
Few industries face challenges as critical as the healthcare sector. Here, punctuality is not just about efficiency, it’s about survival: cold chain, absolute traceability, international regulations, and sensitivity to the slightest delay; each box transported can contain anything from a vaccine to a large machine that can save lives.
In this industry, the margin of error is measured in millimeters.
T21 had the opportunity to explore the Kuehne+Nagel MDC facility in Tepotzotlán, State of Mexico, where two of its facilities are highly specialized in the pharmaceutical and medical device sectors.
In this complex, Daniel Pardo , head of Contract Logistics at Kuehne+Nagel Mexico, explained step by step the complexities within the logistics of this industry.
The company has racks, a loading and unloading area, temperature-controlled chambers, and clean rooms for labeling and packaging merchandise in this complex, which also serves as a bonded warehouse and IMMEX (Manufacturing, Maquiladora, and Export Services Industry).
Daniel Pardo explained that this business unit handles pharmaceuticals for both human and animal use. These medications, which require controlled temperatures, vary in temperature range within their cold chain.
For this reason, the company has refrigeration, freezing, and cryogenic chambers , according to the needs of each client.
On the other hand, the storage facility is highly secure, especially for psychotropic drugs, which are protected by a security filter.
Clean rooms, meanwhile, serve to sterilize the environment so that no dust particles can enter, since the goods require this treatment, such as needles that will be used on patients.
In addition, the complex has technology dedicated to inventory , with drones that perform precise work with 100% reliability, since each of the outgoing merchandise must be perfectly tracked and clearly show which patients they are intended for, in case of any eventuality.
Each client within these complexes receives a custom-made suit, just like those who import large-volume goods, such as MRI machines, which also require constant ventilation and temperature control in the magnets.
On the other hand, transportation also requires great precision, from those carrying high-value cargo that requires an armored unit, to those transporting vaccines or medicines to a farm that need to be treated and disinfected before moving to another farm.
In a world where healthcare faces increasingly complex challenges—pandemics, diseases, and biotechnology—logistics is no longer a supporting player, but a central part of the system.
Invisible to the patient, but vital at every step, supply chain professionals are the new guardians of modern life.
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