I am engaged by a client who manufactures, markets, distributes, and services medical devices. My current project involves the identification, retrieval, and destruction of pumps the client has deemed at End of Life (EOL) and wishes to retire from the marketplace. While the program scope is worldwide my project management responsibilities are scoped to US based customers. All of the work we do, from customer contact to return of the pumps and updating the tracking system, is done under in an FDA regulated environment using Good Documentation Practices (GDP). This is a reverse logistics project that involves product/customer identification, use of a Third Party Logistics (3PL) provider to collect and recycle the pumps, and completing the FDA required documentation to provide the audit trail of documentation and objective evidence that pumps are indeed out of clinical use.

This project combines scope planning (how many customers, how many pumps, where are the customers and pumps), communication planning (how do we initially contact customers, how do we get them to cooperate to return the EOL pumps), and customer service skills along with KPI tracking and status reporting. It’s a Supply Chain / Reverse Logistics project, a discipline I’ve been involved with before. This is also a client I’ve worked with before so being called back a second time to help out provides a measure of satisfaction of a job well done the first time around. Clients remember you when you do a good job for them – repeat business is the best measure of that.

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