Driving Field Inventory Optimization Starts With The Right Tools

[ *The purpose of this article is to share insights that help med device leaders (operations, sales, IT) increase revenue & optimize field inventory through effective digital transformation.]

The Best Medical Device Companies Increase Turns, Reduce Inventory, Drive Sales and Maximize Inventory Optimization Through Better Tools & Sales Force Effectiveness

(It’s Not The Reps Fault, It’s Your Toolset)

Increasing asset utilization starts with the effectiveness of your sales force and operational teams. They must be aligned.

To drive sales and make inventory management effective, the tools used must bring data, visibility, efficiency, insight, control, and speed of service together in one platform.

Tools must be aligned with processes.

A unified approach gives med device companies peace of mind and accurate information.

In order to truly optimize your field inventory, you need to be able to do a few things really well:

Case Scheduling
Product Requesting
Loaner Management (Items, Sets, Kitting, Trays)
Consignment Control
Instrument Tracking
Usage Capture
Billing & Replenishment Automation

Besides functionality, your next system needs to be user-friendly.

THE RIGHT TOOL HELPS YOU GET WORK DONE 10X MORE EFFICIENTLY

Give your team a tool they love to use.

Prospective/Current clients that have performed time studies between “other tools” (ERP Bolt-on, 3rd party) and Movemedical have calculated a 280x faster processing time (less waiting time) in Movemedical.

When our partners calculate the reduction in “clicks”, the average is a 5x reduction in steps when using the Movemedical software vs every other option.

If the tool is easy to use and helps everyone get the job done, you will get true adoption.

Here are a few of the key areas that a true field automation system will provide:

Case Scheduling + Product Requesting

Schedule every surgery on a shared, customizable calendar. Request items needed based on surgeon preference, procedure, sets, trays, or individual items. Track history, trends, and future cases. Tie in usage, billing, and shipments to all cases.

Usage Capture

Capture implant and instrument usage directly from the mobile phone (Scan, Drop-Down, Manual Entry). No need for attaching a scanner (can be done if desired though). Phone scanning usage is simple, fast, and accurate. Next, capture the required approving signature directly on the phone. The usage then auto-populates the necessary forms (Charge, Invoice, Disposition, etc.) to be automatically sent to the provider, customer service, operations, and of course back to the ERP (SAP, Oracle).

The ease of use, speed, and accuracy of phone-based usage and signature capture creates automation that sales reps crave and helps everyone get real-time data.

Instrument Tracking (UDI, MDR, IVDR)

Lot control isn’t always straightforward, especially with non-sterile items. The pieces are likely lot controlled in the ERP and may ship in sterile packaging but then they get pulled out and put in trays at which point you lose the lot traceability.

Movemedical assigns every single item in the system a unique identifier, whether they are serialized or lot controlled, or both, or neither.

Something unique Movemedical does is allow for this as part of the processing of trays through what we call “Lot Rewrite”. Under specific, configurable circumstances we can automate the rewrite/removal of lot traceability for specific stock records. Move allows a lot-controlled item to be not lot-tracked in specific scenarios (e.g. inside a tray) So, Movemedical will remove the lot in our system and most often trigger a call to the ERP to set the lot to a new temporary lot number. We don’t use the temp lot, this just makes it easier for users to perform data entry for these stock records. The system then knows when communicating with the ERP to use the temp lot when sending orders, getting pricing, etc.

This is just one option of many that illustrates how lot control is hard, and tracking instruments is difficult, yet the right tools make it easier. With the proper tool you can eliminate 70-80% of the probable locations, so when there is a recall or the need arises, you can limit your search area to locations you can be certain about.

Instrument tracking is complex. The best solution is flexible. It is a system that can receive information in a variety of ways, has functional algorithms mapped to eliminate false locations/outcomes, and then allows traceability at every level.

Loaner Management

While the loaner management process is complex, Movemedical makes it easy for all the users to request, schedule, fulfill, and track the items and loans at every step of the journey.

Any future surgery booking (request) can be taken without restriction. Users employ various case statuses to differentiate provisional booking or confirmed booking. No (hard) inventory allocation is made when a booking is created. When a booking is created, Move creates a corresponding ‘Loan’. The Loan captures material for the ‘required period’. A report (ATP, etc.) can be utilized as ‘soft allocation check’ to highlight if future order has potential supply issue and automatic notifications can be established. Actual (hard) inventory allocation happens during sourcing. Users can choose to source manually or set up a sourcing profile so Movemedical can allocate inventory accordingly. Users can also manually create an order/loan to reserve an item when there is no surgery booking.

Loans are assigned and coordinated based on multiple variables. They can be rule-based by time duration, by location, by the provider, or by an event. Loans can be “piggy-backed” to multiple events or by multiple rules for ultimate flexibility and transparency.

Consignment Control

Consignment must be done right. Every stakeholder needs to have visibility and that means all actions must be recorded and tracked in the system.

Managing consignment inventory is not one-sided. It must be approached as a team effort. As the medical device implant manufacturers and hospitals get on the same platform, the ability to manage inventory smarter will be greatly increased.

Consignment inventory optimization and performance is directly related to the quality of collaboration both internally (across Sales, Supply Chain, Finance) and externally (with the Hospital, ASC).

Better collaboration requires a unified and integrated platform.

Accurate real-time visibility to consignment inventory and trunk stock has been difficult for most to achieve. When the right tool is aligned with proper processes, accurate and real-time data is created to effectively optimize all consignment inventory.

Movemedical enables powerful consignment management by syncing all data and parties onto one actionable platform that enables requests, orders, transfers, sales, usage capture, replenishment, and billing all-in-one.

Lost and Found (Automatic Audits)

In large medical device inventory systems, items are never where they are “supposed to be” 100% of the time. Discrepancies can occur for a host of reasons including: misplacement, incorrect transfers, incorrect order entry, etc. Discrepancies are typically addressed in a laborious manner: manual reconciliation, cycle counting, phone calls, and repeated audits.

The Movemedical Lost and Found function automatically tracks items wherever they reside without having to create a separate bin of inventory or to record write-offs prematurely in the ERP system. When inventory is expected but not received or received but not expected, the inventory piece is marked lost or found, respectively. When lost items are later found, Movemedical auto-reconciles and creates transfers as needed.

Organization Benefits:

Reduced hands-on reconciliation

The lost and found feature in Movemedical significantly reduces FTE needs for reconciliation and audit, including cycle counting.

Continuous, Less-Burdensome Cycle Counting:

One of the critical issues in classic cycle counting is being able to complete it before results become dated. In Movemedical, real-time cycle counting is made possible by the Lost and Found feature. Cycle count and reconciliation is performed continuously, eliminating the need to start and stop the process.

Operational Efficiency:

Lost and Found does more than just reduce auditing and cycle counting. Day-to-day field operations are made simpler, as users don’t need to hold incomplete shipments in holding bins or drop their current task in order to do reconciliation research on the spot.

Smart Business Rules:

After a set time period (ex: 90-days) write-offs are automatically triggered and transmitted to the accounting system.

User Benefits:

Simplicity. When a deviation occurs the item is simply tagged as lost or found.
Spend time where it’s needed most. Operations can spend time on valuable activities like fulfilling orders, rather than resolving discrepancies.
Reduced audit and cycle count burden. Less inventorying of stock and more accurate par levels.
Automated Real-Time Cycle Counting

How It Works:

The all-too-common approach to managing lost items is to create a separate “lost” bin, in which the details of the piece are lost. Movemedical Lost and Found allows an attribute to be added to a piece of stock marking that piece, kit, etc as “lost”. During that time, it is still represented as stock and is still tracked in the system. Found items are tagged and reconciled in the same manner, and when either type is scanned it can reconcile in the following ways:

UDI tracking/serialization
Auto-reconciliation if the piece matches with previous to/from locations

So, rather than constantly fixing errors with a great deal of manual effort, users can simply tag items as they are discovered and let the platform solve the problem. Organizations then enjoy reduced write-downs and increased asset utilization, all with less time, effort, and money than they have ever invested before.

Field inventory optimization is possible.

If you enable the right processes you will be able to optimize your field inventory. You need to:

– Provide All Users with an Integrated, Easy-To-Use Tool (App, Desktop)

– Share All Relevant Data (Accessibility & Transparency)

This works because once the sales reps and ops teams have a tool that they will actually use, then you can collect and measure the right data.

A system that drives optimization is built on the foundation of user experience combined with deep functionality.

Next Step – Contact Us: — mm@movemedical.com or (877) 469-3992

P.S. — Worried about integration and implementation? … don’t.

OUR ROBUST INTEGRATION PROCESS INCLUDES:

Project Management
Process Mapping
Data Assessments
Solution Design
Develop, Test, and Iterate during Sprints
Assistance with client UAT/Validation Testing
Full cutover planning and execution
Training planning and material creation
Extended on-site and on-hand Hyper-Care

(Our success and experience creating working real-time and file-based ERP integrations in SAP, Oracle, GP, Dynamics, AS400, XA, etc… helps us help you)

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If you want to sell more, build stronger relationships all while reducing headaches and cumbersome manual admin work, you need to speak with us.

Contact us: 858.956.0219 or info@movemedical.com

WATCH DEMO NOW (you can personalize it to your needs/wants)

A good sales & inventory solution is worth its weight in gold, a fully integrated medical device specific operations and sales force effectiveness platform is priceless.

A complete sales & inventory tool should be able to or have:

Surgery Scheduling (+ Calendar)
Surgeon Preferences / Preference Cards
Inventory Control & Visibility (All Locations, All Buckets)
Sales Metrics / Data (Reps, Leaders, Corporate)
Shipping Coordination (FedEx, UPS Integration)
Auto Product Replenishment
Expiration Notifications
Direct Orders
Inventory Transfers / Send & Receive Tools (Rep to Rep etc.)
Contract & List Pricing (Real-time)
Audit/Cycle Counts
Reporting & Billing
Image & File Sharing
Secure HIPAA Compliant Communication
Mobile Usage Capture
UDI Compliance
Barcode Scanning
RFID Integration & RFID Reconciling (HF/UHF)
ERP/CRM/EMR Integrations
Demand Planning Tools
Consignment/Loaner Management
Pluggable Workflows (Programmatic Integrations, Integrated Prediction Models)
Sourcing Matrix Tool
HIPAA Compliant Communication Platform (Messages, Calendar, Usage, Notes, Files)
Hybrid Kitting (Skinny Kits, Kit Management, Kit Versioning, Tracking)
Lost & Found (Automatic Cycle Counting )
Merger/Acquisition Integration (Cross-Selling)
Par Management
Multi-Catalog Management
Loan Optimization
Separate or Combined Sales & Operations Alignment
Cost-to-Serve Metrics
Turn Ratio Dashboards