When it comes to a supply chain that affects people’s well-being and ultimately their lives, it’s critical that manufacturers and distributors facilitate tools that help them meet the highest levels of efficiency, traceability, quality and delivery. Few solutions are as vital to achieving this as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems.
Businesses that operate throughout the healthcare industry need complete control and traceability of their supply chains. Quality control is key, as many businesses face compliance criteria set by such authorities as the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority, and the Good Laboratory Practice Monitoring Authority. Demand planning is important because there aren’t always seasonal peaks, and inventory control and stock management is critical if manufacturers and distributors are going to continue to produce and supply lifesaving equipment as and when it is required. This functionality, together with order processing, customer service, production scheduling, and manufacturing control, is as key to the healthcare sectors as it is to any other vertical manufacturing industry, making a one-size-fits all ERP solution for the healthcare industry an impossibility.
A solution like SYSPRO, which takes a modular approach to determining key functionality, and still encourages collaboration with medical professionals, can be structured and implemented to meet the business processes of a healthcare supplier, to ensure that they are performing efficiently, accurately and transparently. By improving the flow of information and control throughout the organisation, and wider enterprise, ERP can help to drive cost out of the supply chain, reduce lead times and ensure greater customer service.
Servicing a high growth industry
The healthcare industry is one with huge potential for growth. Acquisitions are not uncommon in this sector, and many healthcare businesses are constantly embracing servitization and working to improve their service offering to customers, resulting in additional services and departments, and even more complex supply chains. Often the technology can be left behind and many businesses in the healthcare sector find themselves trying to integrate disparate IT systems, or supporting automated processes with lots of manually intensive labour tasks. This can be OK for small periods of time, but when a business experiences a peak in demand, the volume capacity in their manufacturing operations reach a glass ceiling, and existing systems can become stretched to their limits.
What SYSPRO does is provide a single, scalable solution to help healthcare businesses gain greater control and visibility of their entire supply chain, supporting their growth pattern. With a single solution, healthcare businesses can reduce their dependence on clerical records and improve efficiency throughout their manufacturing cycles. Controlled information and data exchange with equipment and systems for research, manufacture and product trials, can enable businesses in this sector to create organised, controlled processes between multiple product lines, research and development, testing, and manufacture.
What ERP can offer: Complete traceability and transparency of supply chain operations
In an industry where traceability is a fundamental priority, it is not surprising that healthcare companies are becoming so reliant on ERP. The record keeping requirements of the healthcare industry, the controls that need to be demonstrated, and the compliance associated with clinical trials, research and product manufacture leave no room for error, and are placing supply chain control and visibility top of the healthcare agenda.
SYSPRO’s inventory management functionality gives full transparency of materials and ingredients, batch control and expiry dates, to ensure efficient storage of stock and ensure that no expired inventory is being held. Efficient production scheduling can help manufacturers respond more quickly to demand, and minimise downtime, ensuring businesses remain productive as well as consistently meeting the stringent standards of industry regulators by managing quality control records, supporting full traceability and audit support.
