A medical device company that is a leader in cardiological therapeutic and monitoring devices believes in product innovation to help patients live healthier. They have helped and treated more than two million patients worldwide and have a presence in over a hundred countries. The company is a multi-billion dollar corporation with several thousand employees globally.
Learn how this manufacturer upgraded their digital systems to improve their supply chain processes and become more efficient in budgeting, tracking, and monitoring for supply chain quality gains and efficiencies.
Challenge
The client desired to gain a comprehensive understanding of critical supply chain processes, specifically with supplier and vendor management, as well as reporting for customers, products, and other management-focus areas. Their previous system of supplier approvals was based on QSC (Quality System Certificate) issued by a registrar. Audits were performed by a Supply Quality Engineer (rather than a cross–functional team), which provided insufficient follow-up assessments after corrective action and a lack of concrete tracking of overall performance. They also desired to have intensive analytics & reporting capabilities in place without impacting their operational systems, along with appropriate maintenance of historical records for compliance and trend analysis.
Solution
- Mapping of key business processes as well as supplier–related information, such as supplier capability, on-time delivery performance and responsiveness, across various enterprise systems
- Integration, aggregation and normalization of information into a global data repository for a single version of the truth and 360o view of supplier information
- Definition of KPIs and metrics as well as creation of supplier scorecards and dashboards
- Development of a new set of reports to address the operational and strategic information needs of key business stakeholders
- Delivery of hands-on user-training and handholding assistance to drive user adoption and maximize value for the organization
Technology Products/Platforms
Informatica, Oracle, QlikView, Tableau, Microsoft Analysis Services
Results & Business Impact
- Uniform guidance for supplier selection with benchmarks and expectations for all suppliers
- Reduction in Non-Conformance Reports (NCRs) and field actions
- Standardization of supplier information, allowing ranking of suppliers based on specific products, traits or benchmarks
- Integration of data from various systems that enabled collection of daily sales and inventory data from accounting and warehouse management systems
- Enablement of efficient budget planning, tracking and monitoring
- 360o view for improved forecasting accuracy of sales and inventory, enabling tighter coupling of fulfillment processes
- Effective, agile decision-making enabled with the most current and comprehensive information