Process Optimization in Overall Supply Chain
Project
Our Consultants carried out an assessment on the total Supply Chain of the Ministry of Health. They found out the followings:
The Inventory section was the weakest section of DMM. It lacked the appropriate knowledge and expertise. For an organization handling large volume of Drugs, there were no material planners with any pharmaceutical background or knowledge. Hence, they were not able to distinguish between sensitive, critical or normal items.
It was functioning casually missing the important data analysis. There was no schedule for producing important reports. Reports were printed missing the important data. Only few of the planners could produce a Zero Stock Items report. There were no requests for predicting Zero Stock items in variable future. The main Stock Database carried mistakes, duplications and in some cases wrong categories.
The staffs were planning without any knowledge of the existing stock or material consumption of the Health Centres or Hospitals.
There were no Management Analysis Reports in DMM. For example: The inventory section was not producing appropriate Zero Stock or Expected Zero Stock reports. The Procurement Section was not producing appropriate Outstanding Purchase Order Reports. The Warehousing Section was not producing appropriate Expired or Expiring items reports. Of course due to lack of production of the mentioned reports, the related FMIS utilities were not appropriately designed and implemented.
On the other hand, DMM had no visibility of the stock of its largest users such as Hospitals and the Health Centres. Hence, the Inventory and the Warehousing sections had no information about the stock levels, the expiring items and also consumptions by the mentioned users.
In this phase of our project, our consultants addressed the above problems and implemented corresponding suitable solutions.
Our Solution
- Re-Engineering the Inventory Section.
- Correction of items’ Descriptions and Classifications
- Data Clarification
- Establishment of a Control System: Progress Monitoring Unit (PMU)
- Optimization of the PMU’s activities in coordination with the Inventory Section.
- Solutions to Zero Stock problems.
- Optimization of the Inventory related FMIS utilities.
- Introduction of a mechanism for creating visibility of stock of the stores of all Health Centres and Salmaniya Hospital within the whole Directorate of Material Management.
Results
The first objective was the “Re-Engineering of The Inventory Section”. Our Consultants did reorganize the structure by assigning specific tasks to specific staff. Of course, they were confined to the available personnel and their skills. They did setup routines that the staff were supposed to carry out everyday in order to avoid Zero Stock situation.
Our experts also empowered the Progress Monitoring Unit in order to monitor ALL the existing processes within DMM. This unit was extremely vital to the existence of DMM. As mentioned before, PMU had a weekly publication of all the processes which should be confirmed by all the sections. In our opinion, the Director of DMM should study these publications and take the necessary actions to rectify the problems.
Our experts, in cooperation of FMIS project leader designed a mechanism by which the stock within Hospitals and Health Centres’ Store became visible to DMM.