Talking Supply Chain: How J&J’s Luis Roman views digital transformations

Supply chain digital transformations are all the rage, but for some industries, that transformation impacts more than just the supply chain. In the Medtech space, digital supply chain transformations are improving operations, lowering the bottom line, and saving lives.

To Luis Roman, vice president of MedTech Supply Chain at Johnson & Johnson, the digital journey represents more than just improving supply chain operations.

“For us, digital innovation is viewed as an integral part of improving patient outcomes by enhancing the efficiencies and effectiveness of our supply chain,” he told Talking Supply Chain podcast host Brian Straight. “We do that by ensuring that products reach our customers in a reliable and timely manner. At J&J, we’ve recognized the need to transition from legacy, manual approaches to more digitalized capabilities to enhance agility and responsiveness across multi-dimensions of our business, including risk within supply chain. Digital innovation is really seen as crucial in building resilience within our supply chain, enabling us to quantify risk, and improve visibility into areas of previously hidden vulnerabilities which ultimately are ensuring continuity of supply.”

That supply is critical to patient lives. Roman noted that while digitization might be easier for large organizations, any size organization can embark on a digitization journey. To illustrate, he noted a project with Johnson & Johnson’s orthopedic team that started with just a few team members.

“We have an amazing solution that was developed by a small team with a very modest budget,” he said. “But it’s very much homegrown.”

Roman said the solution is now being scaled. He added that J&J has implemented robust data tracking that feeds from the manufacturing floor into analytic hubs and displayed throughout facilities as well as to management dashboards.

“They’re really used in all key performance meetings which include shift handovers, daily escalation meetings and weekly performance reviews, not to mention executive pulsing of our business as a whole,” he said. “It gives employees, and really our site leadership, the real-time detailed understanding of their performance of how manufacturing is performing, and it allows them to react faster to issues and deep dive on problems. All while maintaining focus on safety, quality and compliance. It really level sets the real-time view of how our businesses and our sites are doing day in, day out.”

Roman also touched on some of the innovations, both current and upcoming, in the Medtech supply chain, what he views as the biggest opportunity for providers in the space, and an interesting robotic surgical solution Johnson & Johnson has developed and how the supply chain has adapted to incorporate it into its portfolio.

Listen today.

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