Establishing a Successful Global ERP Strategy in the Medical Supply Chain

Digital transformation can be defined as how the right technology can benefit suppliers and by extension, health care professionals. It is therefore crucial to understand your organization's targets and design the strategy around these goals.

With be one solutions’ experience working with companies in this industry, we understand that most suppliers aim to be compliant and customer experience-focused, hence their desire to optimize their end-to-end distribution processes. These objectives can be realized through establishing the right strategy, with the aid of key innovations.

For one of our clients producing pacemakers, we implemented a successful multi-country 2-tier ERP strategy. Thanks to this template-based implementation of SAP Business One for its subsidiaries worldwide, this multinational was able to standardize processes companywide, with perfect integration into the company HQ running on SAP ECC.

Among many other benefits, this strategy allows the automation of invoice creation and / or order between subsidiaries in Asia and the HQ through custom interfaces. For example, a purchase order created in company A is immediately replicated as a sales order in the HQ. This eliminates human errors such as double order creation on both ends.

Staying Compliant in an Ever-Evolving Industry Landscape.

Every industry has fundamental requirements that must be met and the Medical Device industry is no exception. Today more than ever, the traceability of medical devices is a must for every institution involved in their production and supply, with the spotlight on suppliers. In the EU for example, the “Europe’s medical device regulation” (EU MDR), imposing an entirely new set of requirements for importers and distributors, specifically, went into effect May 2021. This and many other specificities of this industry beg the question; How can digital transformation help suppliers stay compliant?

Lifecycle Traceability

In most countries, the complete lifecycle traceability of medical equipment is a law put in place to protect human life. It is primordial for the recall of defective or expired products as well as the monitoring of the patients utilizing them. Pace Maker batteries for example, require replacement every 5-7 years. Knowing the location of the given product at all times is necessary and this is where serial number management comes to a place. Thanks to proper ERP implementation as well as our add-ons, traceability is much easier for our clients. With SAP B1, serial number management is a breeze, and the location of goods distributed is updated at every given moment. Furthermore, the extraction of compulsory patient reports to be submitted to the government is made possible as every process contributes to an audit trail available on the system.

Stock Dating

Due to the widespread use of the just-in-time (JIT) system in this industry, suppliers of medical devices lack proper insights on the true state of their inventory. This is because medical facilities retain specific items in stock to meet immediate needs, paying the cost of purchase only once the stock is consumed. This is often an obstacle to stocktaking as goods are outside of company premises and often off network. For our client producing and supplying Pacemakers, our innovative be one WMS (Warehouse Management System) was implemented alongside SAP B1. Lot number traceability is now enhanced as it is a secondary check, ensuring the physical Lot matches the logged lot in the system, before it’s sent out for delivery.

Furthermore, it allows offline stock taking which is then integrated into to SAP Business One once the system is back online.

Data Insights for Better Decision-Making and Planning

Digital transformation allows quick access to accurate and comprehensive data that makes for better decision-making and planning. Thanks to centralized and easily accessible data, upper management has full visibility of their best-selling products in each country. Transformational solutions help integrate applications and deliver in-depth insights on the available inventory, thus supporting real-time Manufacturing and Supply decisions globally.

Patient Data Confidentiality

In the medical device industry, certain elements of patient data are often collected and stored for the overall safety of the patient, a good example would be the data of patients utilizing custom prosthetics. Leakage, loss or alteration of such information may not only result in lawsuits and fines, but also irreparable damage to your organization’s reputation and value. With the latest advancements in Cloud encryption technology, we are able to provide our customers with a safe, iron-clad security environment for the protection and management of the sensitive patient data required in the day to day running of their business. Thanks to customizations in SAP B1, our team also manages the access of end users to this information, in the event of changes to the team structure (terminated users).

How Can the Right Business Partnership Consolidate Your Strategy?

By working with an SAP Partner present globally, servicing multiple sites is made easy. In 27 countries, our expert teams are available on-ground to physically accompany your team and end users in their mother tongue. Furthermore, having a single point of contact reduces the risk of data breaches as sensitive information is only shared with a single global company, as opposed to several local partners.

For our customer SciGen Pharmaceuticals, we took over the reimplementation of SAP Business One at their Singaporean site, as well as the execution of 2 other sites in Korea and Australia. They also benefitted from customizations to their financial consolidation report system.

Contact our SAP Implementation experts today to learn how to optimize your inbound and outbound inventory processes.