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Container unit list

In IWRS, containers are hierarchical units used to group and manage investigational medicinal products (IMPs) and placebos for shipping and inventory purposes. They act as parent units for product units and are defined at different levels.

All the container units previously created in IWRS are displayed under TREATMENT DESIGN > Container Unit with the details explained in the following table.

Container unit list
Figure 1. Container unit list

Column

Details

Container Level

Represents the hierarchical position of the container in the packaging structure.

  • Level 1: parent unit for product (for example, a medium box containing IMP units).

  • Level 2: parent unit for level 1 container (for example, a large box containing multiple medium boxes).

Container Category

Represents the category or type of container, aiding in organizing site inventory and shipment logic, as well as labelling and identifying containers, for example, medium box and large box.

Shipment Buffer (days)

Represents the buffer period (number of days) used in inventory calculations to determine when a shipment should be triggered.

For example, if the shipment buffer is set to "7" days, the system will trigger resupply if inventory is projected to run out within seven days.

This functionality is similar to the one applied to the product units, but for the container unit, it must be unified across all products within the container.

Components

Represents the products residing within the container, based on the selected container level.

For instance, if the selected container level is 1, then the components must be IMPs, placebos, and so on. On the contrary, if the selected container level is 2, then the components must be of the level 1 container unit.

# of Components

Represents the user-defined number of components inside the container. This is used for label validation and inventory tracking.

As shipping unit for Depots

Represents the depot names that are authorized to use this container type as a shipping unit. This feature limits shipment requests to specific container categories per depot.

For example, depot A can only ship medium boxes and depot B can only ship large boxes.

The following actions can be applied to the container units you see in the container unit list:

In this section:

A pharmaceutical form of active substances or placebos being tested or used as reference in clinical trials.

A substance or treatment designed to resemble the investigational product but has no therapeutic effect. It is used as a control to help researchers determine whether the actual drug or treatment is truly effective.

An investigational product that is used in a study. In eClinical, it can be viewed as an equivalent to a drug name to distinguish items at all stages of their lifecycle—manufacturing, shipment, dispensation to subjects, or else.

Another name for the product unit in the IWRS system is item unit.

A warehouse that is used to store and distribute items (drugs) to another destination (other depots or sites).

In a clinical trial, a location where the subject treatment and drug dispensation occur. It can be a hospital, a private laboratory, or other institutions.