Healthcare Supply Chain Technology and Strategy

Control towers made easy Companies seeking to manage complex global supply chains traditionally  set up a control tower to manage operations. With MDS-Nx System you can create your own. For those unfamiliar with the term, a control tower is an information technology system that allows a company to monitor and manage its carriers, logistics service providers, and suppliers.  Essential to a control tower's operation is the implementation of an "information hub" that connects a company to its suppliers and carriers. Users of the MDS-Nx System will have implemented these technology solutions multiple times over, so we have the framework of a process in place, With the base process already there, we can just make configuration changes for each customer." In addition to providing a technology platform we recognize that most distributors like the idea of retaining control of their strategy but outsourcing the execution. By automating the monitoring and updates for your the ...

Backup and Recovery,  some questions to ask... Take a moment to think about all of the information stored in your company’s Software  (ERP) solution. Now consider what would happen if that data were all gone. How many man-hours would it take to rebuild that database? What would happen to business processes like invoicing, receiving, and shipping? How would you pay bills and collect money? How much would it cost if your business were to suddenly stop? Extra points if you email me who the gentleman in the picture is. Disaster recovery can slip through the cracks, because people often associate it with natural disasters like a fire, tornado, flood, earthquake, or hurricane. Because these are not everyday occurrences, it’s easy to forget about recovery until it is too late. More commonly, it’s too late when a motherboard fails, the database becomes corrupted, or something else less spectacular than a disaster of epic proportions occurs. Many organizations have seen these situation...

Avoiding Errors In Your Software System “Two men were examining the output of the new computer in their department. After an hour or so of analyzing the data, one of them remarked: "Do you realize it would take 400 men at least 250 years to make a mistake this big ?” Errors are a fact of life in  ERP systems  due to either numbers getting transposed, entered incorrectly, or entered in the wrong place. A well-designed ERP system will minimize errors, but you can further reduce them by setting policies and standards for ERP data entry. While errors are less likely in a good ERP system (like the MDS - Nx System), they have more serious consequences because they proliferate through the entire system. Since finding and fixing them is expensive, it's best to take steps to eliminate them up front. Don't Rely on Humans As much as possible don't rely on humans to avoid errors. People have a lot of strengths, but error-free data entry isn't one of them. Proper training and...

How to make yourself an invaluable part of the team Being stuck in the middle is often a bad thing. But what if you’re not stuck? What if, instead, you’re the key part of the operation? A distributor, for example, would likely be in the driver’s seat, capable of straddling manufacturers and customers and calling the shots to their strategic benefit if they can be key part of the operation. The stuck distributor, on the other hand, probably has fewer options and is at risk of being marginalized or, even worse, being squeezed out of the supply chain altogether. IBM’s Guy Blissett, author of the tenth edition of Facing the Forces of Change (a publication of the NAW Institute for Distribution Excellence), recently told an audience of distributors that they must innovate now or risk becoming obsolete . “For a variety of reasons, distributors are thinking about who they are, what they want to do, what value they bring to their customers, and how they want to differentiate themselves, ” said ...