Whether you’re using a clinical supplies application, an ERP system, or lots of spreadsheets to track inventory (or all of the above!), you know there’s got to be a better way.  We hear requirements like “I want to go to ONE place to see where ALL of my inventory is” and “I need a better method for tracing lots back to their source – too much paper involved”.  But with a complex supply chain and many partners doing the manufacturing, packaging and distribution for you, visibility is not easily achieved.

Achieving good inventory visibility will require a solid handle on all of your supply chain.  We know the Clinical Supply Chain is different from the Commercial Supply Chain – the biggest difference being that clinical operations isn’t actually selling a product, but distributing multiple products, sometimes blinded, to many countries under different sets of regulations.  But the planning, procurement, manufacturing, storage and distribution aspects are all still pertinent and must all be within scope to achieve the visibility your company desires.

There may be some quick wins, like using an inventory based purchasing and receiving process rather than expense based purchases  that aren’t traceable.  Or taking some key data points off the paper and into a system – like Supplier or Manufacturer Lot Number – providing greater lot traceability in your system and removing the necessity for paper-based searches through batch records and receiving documents.

In a previous blog posting I pondered the possibility of using an ERP system to manage your clinical supply chain.  Whatever your system of choice is, if your company wants to achieve greater inventory visibility for your clinical supply chain it will take a lot of up front planning and design.  A few things you’ll want to consider:

• Understand how clinical operations really does business – it’s not all written in the SOPs
• Get a handle on all the partners who handle your inventory and decide how much of that information needs to reside in your system
• Determine your “visibility” requirements and how your system can fulfill them
• Dedicate plenty of time towards reporting and business intelligence

There are many ways to achieve your objective, but the most important things are to fully understand your clinical supply chain and your real requirements for visibility and reporting, utilize the systems available to you, and engage new systems carefully where needed.  Clinical supply chain visibility is achievable if you approach it pragmatically with clearly defined requirements.

Bill Stearns

Tags: Clinical Supply Chain, IT Solutions

This entry was posted on Monday, June 14, 2010 at 12:17 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site, or  Forward