Patrice Kaps is a licensed pharmacist and Head of Quality Assurance with Rhenus Logistics at their location close to Strasbourg, France. He describes his core duty as “being sure” – meaning to secure, that all the sensitive pharma products at Rhenus are stored in exactly the right conditions. “We need to maintain our products permanently at the right temperature, in storage as well as during transports”, says Patrice Kaps.
The roots of Rhenus Logistics go back more than 100 years. The company, which borrowed its name from the Latin expression for the Rhine River, still focuses much of its logistics on the regions alongside the European river, and people in Central Europe are well accustomed to the company logo on shipping containers, lorries and train wagons.
However, with more than 40.000 employees and an annual turnover of 7.5 billion euros, Rhenus Logistics is a large global player in logistics and active on all continents.
Rhenus Logistics and Testo have been partners for more than one decade. What began as a humble start by installing monitoring equipment for temperature and humidity in warehouses quickly developed in a close partnership, with Testo providing also services concerning data storage, monitoring and analysis. In times of ever rising requirements concerning the storage of pharmaceuticals, this partnership is more important than ever before. “We are closely committed to fulfilling all of our customer’s requirements concerning the storage conditions of their products”, says Patrice Kaps. Today, there are more than 250 measuring points in around 150 devices at the Strasbourg site.
“Rhenus chose Testo as partner, because the system is reliable, stable and robust”, says Patrice Kaps. Additionally, Testo was able to provide Rhenus with a digital quality insurance system, which offers their customers bespoke data analysis possibilities.
“We are able to adapt the system to the needs and requirements of our customer. We have a wider number of healthcare customers and not every quality insurance department is looking for the same data”, says Patrice Kaps. Thanks to its innovative software, Testo was able to deliver the right solution for every situation.
Being a long-standing customer, Testo has accompanied Rhenus Logistics with two different versions of the testo Saveris generations, V2 and V3, profiting from the continuous improvements and innovations of its hardware, software, and services. This way, the system was able to adapt and keep up with the growth of the on-site infrastructure. It is also the key to support the customer in the years to come. “Analyzing an increasing amount of data for an increasing number of customers with an increasing complexity will remain a challenge in the future”, says Patrice Kaps. For him, Testo is the partner company that supports Rhenus Logistics in meeting all customer expectations when it comes to the safe storage of their pharmaceutical products.
Testo is “Made in Germany” in its best sense: The equipment is reliable and of good quality, and so is the data provided by the testo Saveris system. The team is also very adaptive. They know what we need, and they respond quickly. We have developed a close collaboration and a lasting partnership over the years, which helps us to reply to the needs of our customers.”