With a chain of clinics across Indiana and Illinois region, our client, a healthcare service management company dealing with prosthetic and orthotics caters to numerous patients and has a vast network of partners and vendors. While we are not unaware of the fact of how disappointing and critical it is to not have adequate amount of inventory when clients need it, it is also very evident that advanced and precision components in prosthetic and orthotics add up to millions when combined. This amounts to investment being blocked and released if and when clients have requirements.
With improving the accuracy of inventory orders and experiencing a highly organized warehouse, inventory management saves time, overhead costs and increases operational efficiency and overall productivity.
An approach called Just-in-Time (JIT) has emerged and implemented by numerous companies industry wide. Aiming towards a uniform production flow, we focused on some of the many benefits this approach provided. Production or procurement of components before each stage of requirement, reducing waiting times and non-value added costs, carrying out scheduled maintenance routines and skipping all year round maintenance and storage costs and building stronger relationships with reliable vendors. Another important aspect we considered was the shelf life and expiry of these products. Some of the products within the inventory are stored for months and using these would mean compromising patient health as well as brand name.
Our idea was to combine these three concepts; keeping in mind the importance of inventory management, liquidate existing inventory and procure components and products just in time to cater to patients. While this sounds fairly simple, it was a challenge to set up the platform which would standardize, simplify and polish the process flow.
Building an intra-organizational network wherein different clinics in the area uploaded there inventory and posted their requirements to liquidate components and products, we strategized a unique solution that allowed clinics to post requirements and components for sale. With expert solution engineering, we built a web portal that not only strengthened the network internally, but also helped various clinics with procurement and sales of fairly expensive material while keeping the assets and finances within the company.
Focusing the blocked company investment on patient care and better hospital infrastructure, the merging of these concepts brought a new way of collaborating and releasing inventory blocked money. Not only does this solution help clinics liquidate their old stock but also cleverly help manage inventory related profits and losses.