Back in March 2004, Boston Scientific Corporation had a problem that any manufacturer would love to have. The Natick, Mass.-based company had just received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the U.S. launch of its TAXUS® Express2™ Paclitaxel-Eluting Coronary Stent System, a medical device designed to release the drug paclitaxel inside a heart patient's arteries. Within a few weeks of its U.S. debut, the device had secured close to a 70 percent share of the drug-eluting stent market, and the company had a blockbuster on its hands.

To keep up with that pressing demand, Boston Scientific needed to move TAXUS more quickly from Galway, Ireland, to its distribution center near Boston. "We had a 3.7 day transit time for products shipping to the U.S. from Galway, but we knew we needed to knock off a full day if we wanted to better serve the time-sensitive healthcare market here in the U.S.," says Saron Hines, strategic sourcing manager for Boston Scientific.

Making that happen depended on rethinking every step in the supply chain, from delivery to the DC all the way back to manufacturing and package design. Equally important were the manufacturer's relationships with its airline, freight forwarder, production team, and contract services partners. "It was time for some good old-fashioned collaboration and communication," says Karen Weinstein-Millson, director of corporate procurement at Boston Scientific. "We needed to get partners around a table to discuss people and process."

The fruits of that collaboration have earned Boston Scientific the 2005 Best Practices in Logistics Management Gold Award. By astutely analyzing its production and logistics processes and improving communication with critical partners, Boston Scientific increased the number of cartons it ships, slashed its transit time by more than a day, and substantially cut its freight costs.

Those changes have paid off on several levels. "This open dialogue allowed Boston Scientific to improve fulfillment levels and increase on-time delivery performance and inventory turns—and in the end, increase customer satisfaction," says Hines.

The first challenge for Weinstein-Millson, Hines, and their colleagues in Galway was to figure out how to get more of the products into each shipment. A discussion with Boston Scientific's freight forwarder, DHL Danzas, led them to initially focus on improving space utilization.

The forwarder helped the team see that Boston Scientific wasn't maximizing the space it booked with its airline, Aer Lingus. "We wouldn't have come to that conclusion so early if it hadn't been for our improved dialogue with our freight forwarder," says Weinstein-Millson. "They said, 'Here's the footprint of what we're able to ship on the aircraft, and here's what we're getting from Boston Scientific.' "

"There's limited capacity on the flight from Shannon to Boston to begin with, and here we were, shipping a lot of air," adds Hines. "It was resulting in longer transit times because we were leaving product behind."

After that discussion, the forwarder and the airline offered suggestions for better utilizing the airline's pallets. A space analysis showed that the existing cartons were too wide to optimize the pallets' carrying capacity.

It was clear that Boston Scientific needed to "rethink the box." The Galway team went to work on creating a smaller carton that would still protect the delicate devices inside. The new design had a remarkable impact: Instead of forcing 18 ill-fitting cartons onto an airline pallet, the Galway facility now fits 48, an increase of 167 percent. The new boxes provided another benefit. "Since we were able to make better use of that available space, we realized a rate reduction of about 17 percent," says Hines.

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