Q&A: How The Clorox Company boosted supply chain efficiency during COVID-19
Medline helped get hospital-grade disinfectant to frontline workers faster.
Medline asked Huston Pulford, National Account Manager, Clorox Healthcare, and Rick McDonald, SVP and Chief Supply Chain Officer of The Clorox Company questions about Clorox’s approach to product supply chain operations during the pandemic. They were also asked how Clorox partnered with Medline to get the right products to the right end-user healthcare facilities. Here’s what they had to say.
- Can you tell us about the history of the relationship between you and Medline?
- Huston Pulford: CloroxPro and Medline have a longstanding partnership built on a firm foundation of trust, transparency and shared values. This relationship allowed us to swiftly identify operational supply chain solutions that made a huge difference in meeting the demands of some of our most at-risk customers early on in the pandemic.
- Rick McDonald: Our value as a company since 1913, Do the Right Thing, remained the guiding principle of our response during the pandemic. At the outset, Clorox and CloroxPro took several steps to prioritize delivery of our most in-demand products, including running our cleaning and disinfecting manufacturing facilities 24/7; adding new suppliers to maximize output; and doubling the size of our wipes plant. In addition, we prioritized our hospital-grade disinfectants, increasing production by more than 4X to help healthcare facilities fight the spread of infection.
- What types of problems or challenges were you trying to overcome?
- Huston Pulford: The overarching challenge facing CloroxPro at the outset of the pandemic, was securing line-of-sight in the distribution of our most in-demand product to ensure cleaning and disinfecting supplies were actually getting to frontline providers to help healthcare facilities fight the spread of infection.
- What were your business goals in partnering with Medline?
- Huston Pulford: CloroxPro’s priority was to get hospital-grade cleaning and disinfecting products into the hands of frontline providers to help healthcare facilities fight the spread of infection.
“We focused on doing everything feasible to maximize the supply of disinfecting products to serve consumers, healthcare workers and our communities in the face of unprecedented demand. We focused our manufacturing of disinfecting products on those that can be supplied most quickly, and we partnered with distributors, like Medline, to get product where it was needed most.”
Rick McDonald
SVP and Chief Supply Chain Officer, The Clorox Company
- How does this project/process/deliverable play into your organization’s overall strategy in delivering quality healthcare and services to your clinicians and patients?
- Huston Pulford: CloroxPro’s mission to safeguard public health and well-being was at the center of our operational efforts during the pandemic. In working closely with Medline to find supply chain solutions, it reinforced our mutual core values in putting the end-user first, and through that lens we were able to create efficiencies in delivering supplies to acute-care facilities and frontline healthcare providers that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.
- What type of solution(s) were agreed on and implemented?
- Huston Pulford: CloroxPro and Medline worked together to identify and prioritize specific healthcare facilities that were in need of wipes and customize innovative new supply chain strategies to deliver product to the end-users that needed them most. For example, Medline was able to open up a special supply lane to make sure product was delivered directly to Mount Sinai in New York, which will be sustained moving forward. By activating an alternate route, it ensured product could get where it was needed faster, saving about a week in transit time. Reflecting on the early days of the pandemic, this kind of partnership that Clorox has with Medline highlights the shared values between our companies to put the end-user and public health first.
- How do you see leveraging this partnership in the future?
- Huston Pulford: We look forward to continuing our strong relationship with Medline and working together to identify solutions that serve the needs of end-users, including healthcare facilities and frontline healthcare providers.
- Rick McDonald: We focused on doing everything feasible to maximize the supply of disinfecting products to serve consumers, healthcare workers and our communities in the face of unprecedented demand. We focused our manufacturing of disinfecting products on those that can be supplied most quickly, and we partnered with distributors, like Medline, to get product where it was needed most.
Originally published in SCO Magazine, Issue 5, 2022. For more stories on healthcare supply chain optimization, sign up here.
