CDC Supply Chain

Since 1993, the government has made vaccines free for kids all over the United States, that of course qualifies for the program[1]. Before there were 64 independent distribution centers, where a number of things could go wrong. The vaccines could arrive late and could stop the entire distribution process. Today, there is one central distribution center, which ensures quality and performance for its product.

            After considering the advantage of the vaccines all coming from one place, I considered the weakness of the government relying on one supplier.

1.     If this supplier makes one mistake and accidentally messes up an entire batch of vaccines, the government has no other choice but to depend on this supplier to catch up and produce the required amount of vaccines.

2.     The supplier has more control over the amount of the money they are charging per vaccine.  The government has given the supplier the upper hand. The government is going to be hard pressed to find a supplier that can supply those thousands of vaccines all at once, with a quality and performance guarantee.

So the government should get more than one supplier. Ideally, even if the supplier could increase by one. Then the government could gain more of an advantage. The government could ask each supplier to give them a competitive price. This way the government has some say in how much each vaccine costs. Furthermore, it would be easier for the government to oversee if the quality of the vaccines is high. The government could regulate the quality through testing, awards( on-time delivery, vaccines are consistently to grade standards), and penalties (if the quality of the vaccines is not to grade standards, delivery is not optimal, etc).

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[1] http://www.strategy-business.com/article/08307?pg=all