Case Study: Merck achieves better vaccine distribution and fewer cold-chain excursions with Microsoft Corporation

Merck - Customer Case Study

Merck used Microsoft’s advanced analytics to tackle a major cold-chain challenge: preventing vaccine and biomedical shipments from being damaged by temperature excursions during storage and transit. The company had years of sensor data but needed a better way to predict which shipping conditions, routes, and logistics factors were most likely to cause failures. Microsoft R Server for Hadoop was used to analyze this data and support Merck’s patient-care and vaccine-distribution goals.

With Microsoft Corporation’s Microsoft R Server for Hadoop, Merck built a predictive model and an interactive web app that scored upcoming shipments for excursion risk using variables such as origin, destination, route, and carrier. The model was validated against held-out test data and was described as highly accurate, helping Merck pinpoint problem routes and improve safe transport. The result was better protection of vaccines, less waste, and time-and-cost savings that ultimately supported better patient health.

Merck

Nitin Kaul

Innovation Lead