Coca-Cola, software aid HIV drug deliveries

Coke, along with consultant Accenture, teamed up to share logistics expertise with the Medical Stores Department (MSD) in Tanzania, The Daily Beast reports. Out of the two-year partnership has come a program that has cut delivery times from 30 days to 5 and gotten HIV drugs to 80% of those who seek them, a more than 50% improvement. The company determined upfront that because of the large variety of drugs to be delivered and the need for many to be refrigerated, it couldn't just truck them into isolated villages itself. Instead it shared expertise in logistics and software, mapping out health facilities and creating a stock-management system. The MSD no longer delivers to 500 warehouses but delivers directly to healthcare facilities where local managers know exactly what they need, just like Coke does with point-of-sale delivery. It wasn't just a software trick, however, the new system had to account for weather and limited infrastructure. Article