- DHL Global Forwarding forges ahead with increased quality standards for life sciences and healthcare shipments
- Of the DHL Global Forwarding U.S. operations, Chicago, Illinois is first to receive certification in the country
MIAMI - DHL Global Forwarding, the air and ocean freight specialist within Deutsche Post DHL Group, certified six of its air freight stations, according to the CEIV Pharma Standard of the International Air Transport Association (IATA). The CEIV Pharma Certification of the aviation industry’s umbrella association attests the highest service and quality standards for life sciences and healthcare customers through uniform processes and a compliant network.
“DHL Global Forwarding is one of the first freight forwarders in the U.S. Midwest region to be IATA CEIV Pharma certified,” says David Goldberg, CEO, DHL Global Forwarding. “We at DHL place great emphasis on improving our service quality and demonstrate through IATA CEIV Pharma Certification, that we are the right partner for transporting vital and temperature sensitive products.”
DHL began the certification process of its global stations according to the IATA CEIV Pharma Standard in the third quarter of 2016. Following independent audits by third parties and training courses for employees on site, stations in Chicago (the first to be certified), Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Miami and San Juan, Puerto Rico, received the quality label.
DHL Global Forwarding enhances transportation and storage quality levels of pharmaceutical goods and the DHL Air Thermonet station exceeds usual quality standards. Due to its unique cloud-based IT platform LifeTrack, DHL offers more transparency in comparison to conventional offers in the area of temperature-controlled transports. LifeTrack not only ensures shipment tracking but also enables the intervention during the supply process around the clock on 365 days a year. With this quality assurance initiative DHL positions itself as a reliable partner for the transport of structural complex, temperature sensible pharmaceutical products.
“As a company that complies with these important global baseline IATA CEIV standards, DHL Global Forwarding can ensure its pharmaceutical customers we are working alongside of the aviation industry to safeguard their products with the highest integrity,” says David Bang, Global Head of DHL Temperature Management Solutions and CEO LifeConEx at DHL Global Forwarding.
Inaugurated in 2015, the Chicago station is comprised of 491,000 square feet of office and warehouse space and is the largest free standing DHL Global Forwarding building in its worldwide network. The building contains two temperature controlled chambers (+15° to +25°C and +2° to +8°C) that together measure close to 10,000 square-feet and a 999 square-foot ambient receiving area, built with variable temperature capabilities to process any pharmaceutical, biotech or medical devices that require a temperature-controlled environment and two dedicated truck docks.
In Chicago, the umbrella association IATA examines the station’s correspondence to the Temperature Control Regulations (TCR), the GDP (Good Distribution Practices) guidelines of the European Union, the Annex 5 of the World Health Organization and the United States Pharmacopeia Standards. Apart from this they also set the industry standard for the transportation of dangerous goods and live animals in addition to sensitive pharmaceutical products.
With its international network, DHL offers at all of its Air Thermonet locations a wide-ranging product portfolio, covering all client needs for time and temperature sensitive airfreight shipments. Thereby DHL has successfully established itself as the market leader for logistics solutions in the life sciences and healthcare industry. Also at the IATA-certified DHL Air Thermonet Chicago location, temperature sensible airfreight shipments are handled and the door-to-door courier solution “Life Sciences graded Specialty Courier” is offered for special demands of the industry. Additionally DHL offers the express service “Medical Express” with a fixed delivery time and “DHL Clinical Trial Logistics” a logistics solution specifically designed for clinical studies such as the transportation of trial medication, auxiliary materials and lab kits.
