R.R. Donnelly & Sons (RRD) announced today that it used its supply chain capabilities to accelerate the delivery of rapid COVID-19 tests to the U.S.
The company, which specializes in helping medical device clients optimize their supply chain, said in a news release that it leveraged its ISO 13485 accredited facilities and ability to scale quickly to facilitate Siemens Healthineers’ time-sensitive effort to deliver its COVID-19 antigen self-tests to the U.S. market.
RRD and Siemens Healthineers collaborated to upscale with uncertain demand amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The company said that, during the omicron variant peak in January 2022, Siemens looked to make tens of millions of tests available to the U.S. through state, federal and local partnership efforts. It sought to expand warehouse space to meet the demand and accommodate the massive volumes of its product.
“It was critical to find a supplemental supply chain and warehouse solution that could help us supply high-quality test kits that would provide accurate COVID-19 results to the U.S. population,” said Joerg Berner, acting head of point-of-care diagnostics at Siemens Healthineers. “RRD’s ability to flex and adapt to changing demand helped address some of these needs.”
RRD used its supply chain expertise and fulfillment capabilities to help with the additional scale, inbound receipt, inspection, warehousing, labeling, fulfillment, and logistics of COVID-19 tests. The companies said they worked in lockstep throughout the process.
“Dealing with an already volatile global supply chain and rapidly surging COVID-19 case levels, it was a race against the clock to bring these test kits to market efficiently,” said John Pecaric, head of operations at RRD. “We’re honored to support Siemens Healthineers in its mission to bring their COVID-19 tests to the U.S. market in a short period of time. Our quality assurance, regulatory expertise, and IT capabilities supported the standards that Siemens Healthineers is renowned for across the globe.”