Library

Educational articles on good distribution practice, cold chain and warehouse operations for medicines and medical products, written from standard references.

Information only; not a regulatory interpretation or a storage instruction.

Regulation & Compliance

What is Good Distribution Practice (GDP)?

Good Distribution Practice (GDP) is the set of rules that keeps a medicine's quality intact while it is stored and transported after leaving the manufacturer. It covers the warehouse, transport, documentation and recall arrangements together.

Regulation & Compliance

Türkiye's medicine tracking system (İTS) in the warehouse

İTS is Türkiye's medicine tracking system, run by TİTCK. Each pack's DataMatrix code holds the product number, a serial number, the expiry date and the batch number. The warehouse scans every pack at receipt and dispatch, and never ships a code the system does not know.

Regulation & Compliance

Storing medical devices: UDI and ÜTS

Medical devices are stored under the conditions on their label, and their lot numbers and expiry dates are recorded at receipt and dispatch. UDI gives each device an identity that carries model and production data. ÜTS is the system in which devices are registered in Türkiye and their movements reported.

Regulation & Compliance

Recall readiness

A recall can start at any moment, and the first question is always the same: where is this batch? EU GDP asks for distribution records to be readily available and for recall arrangements to be evaluated at least once a year. A mock recall shows the gaps before a real one does.

Regulation & Compliance

What do label storage conditions mean?

A medicine's label storage condition comes from stability studies and is set by the marketing authorisation holder; the warehouse keeps it. Each statement, such as 'Store in a refrigerator (2–8 °C)', 'Do not freeze' or 'Do not store above 25 °C', needs a measurable counterpart in the warehouse.

Cold Chain

Where does the cold chain break?

The cold chain rarely breaks inside the cold room. It breaks at handovers: waiting on the dock, preparing orders outside the room, loading and transport. Freezing is a risk too. After a deviation the goods are quarantined and the product owner decides.

Cold Chain

Evaluating temperature excursions in transport

When a temperature excursion happens in transport, the goods are quarantined, the logger data for the whole journey is collected, and the size and duration of the excursion are established. Whether the product can still be used is decided by its owner, based on stability data.

Cold Chain

What is the cold chain?

The cold chain is the unbroken series of storage, transport and handover steps that keeps a temperature-sensitive product within its label range from manufacture to use. The most common range is 2–8 °C; the chain protects against warming and freezing alike, and every link has to be on record.

Warehouse Operations

How is temperature mapping done?

Temperature mapping measures how temperature is distributed across a storage area and where hot and cold spots form. The result shows where permanent sensors belong and which parts of the area are unsuitable for sensitive products.

Warehouse Operations

Humidity, packaging and storage

Humidity affects some products directly and packaging almost always: cartons lose strength in humid air and labels stop sticking. When cold goods meet warm, humid air, condensation forms. That is why relative humidity is monitored alongside temperature.

Warehouse Operations

FEFO and batch traceability

FEFO means the product with the nearest expiry date leaves the warehouse first, and medicine stock rotates by that rule. Batch number and expiry date are recorded at receipt, in storage and at dispatch. Those records are what make a recall possible and fast.

Warehouse Operations

Cleaning and pest control in the warehouse

GDP asks for storage areas to be cleaned to written instructions, for cleaning to be recorded and for a preventive pest control programme to run. In practice that means numbered monitoring points, regular visit reports and steady checks on doors and dock seals.

Warehouse Operations

How are food supplements stored?

Food supplements are stored under the condition on their label, protected from heat and humidity, with batch and expiry records. Vague statements such as 'store in a cool, dry place' need a numerical range agreed in writing with the brand owner.

Warehouse Operations

How are cosmetic products stored?

Cosmetic products are stored away from heat, light and frost, and tracked by batch number and, where the label has one, by durability date. Aerosols and alcohol-based perfumes are flammable and are kept apart under fire-safety rules.

Guides

Questions to ask when choosing a storage partner

Under EU GDP, a company that outsources storage assesses whether its partner is competent for the job. Licences, temperature mapping, monitoring and alarms, deviation reporting, reports, recalls and an exit plan are the main topics to cover in that assessment.

Guides

How to measure warehouse performance

Warehouse performance is tracked with a few measures defined in the contract and counted the same way every month: order accuracy, on-time dispatch, inventory accuracy, temperature compliance, deviation closure time and others. The trend matters more than any single month.

Guides

How is warehouse storage priced?

Storage pricing is rarely one number. Storage per pallet or per square metre, handling in and out, order picking, value-added work and reporting are separate lines, and the storage condition, stock turnover and contract length shape the total.

Guides

What is 3PL (third-party logistics)?

In 3PL a company hands its storage, order fulfilment and often transport management to a specialist logistics provider under a contract. In regulated sectors such as pharmaceuticals the work is outsourced but responsibility for the product stays with its owner; the roles are set in a written contract.

Guides

Moving stock to a new warehouse

Moving stock to a new warehouse is a records job: the new site is ready and mapped before goods arrive, stock is counted and reconciled by batch, date and status, transport keeps the label condition, and goods are released only once the count at the new site matches.

Guides

Storage and distribution glossary

Short explanations of the terms that come up most in storing medicines and medical products: GDP, GMP, FEFO, FIFO, İTS, ÜTS, UDI, cold chain, quarantine, deviation and more, with links to the articles that cover them.