Supply chain efficiency is essential for organizations across all segments, but this competency is especially crucial for healthcare shippers.
In an industry with quick turnarounds and high-value products, it is vital that healthcare shippers maintain visibility into and control over their supply chains to ensure they function at peak performance.
One of the most beneficial ways for shippers to uncover efficiencies is to evaluate their supply chains and make incremental improvements. Pragmatic analysis can uncover opportunities to make improvements that can help control inventory and manage costs.
Shipping healthcare products to in-network distribution centers, third-party warehousing providers, and a wide array of customers, organizations must maintain visibility to achieve effective inventory management practices and unlock critical analytics that can effectively diagnose supply chain health.
As organizations, new technology solutions have become the best tools to achieve effective shipment visibility, which is vital for uncovering efficiencies.
Supply Chain Efficiency Benefits for Healthcare Shippers
There are numerous benefits of increased visibility for healthcare shippers. By having enhanced insight into crucial logistics processes, healthcare shippers can increase efficiencies, reduce cost, shorten time to market, and improve inventory management.
Either through the implementation of firm-purchased technology investments or effective logistics outsourcing, healthcare shippers can improve their supply chain functions. Here are a few ways in which organizations can do so.
Analyze Your Network
Healthcare supply chains are complex and made up of many disparate pieces. Improving efficiency requires that shippers understand how these fit together to create the logistics puzzle.
Regardless of the locations of distribution centers, production and warehousing facilities, it is critical that your operation function as a cohesive unit. Your organization should build its network to accommodate orders to valuable customers.
The most successful vendors have constructed their networks to complete the most high-value of their orders cost-effectively. That typically means cutting transport distance from distribution centers to large customers’ locations to capitalize on order profitability.
Leverage Vital Logistics KPIs
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are an essential part of increasing visibility into your supply chain. After all, they designate how your supply chain is performing.
Isolating essential transportation metrics like cost per 1,000 pounds and miles hauled can give you a look into your transportation efficiency.
Costs per shipment can be a driving force for network reconfiguration and inventory management improvements. Having supply chain data is an essential part of forecasting and reducing logistics costs as well as making supply chain refinements.
Add Visibility into Key Processes
Visibility is one of the most reliable indicators of a successful supply chain. By having operational transparency, healthcare shippers can effectively plan orders to meet tight timelines.
When products are needed at healthcare facilities, providers must meet urgent delivery deadlines to ensure treatments can continue as scheduled.
To best do this consistently, you must have visibility into your SKUs and transportation from your distribution centers to your customers’ receiving facilities.
A technologically-enabled logistics operation can help you achieve this necessary function of the modern supply chain. You can ensure that a product is transported promptly and intervene if any issues arise during shipment through trackability.
Effectively tracking KPIs can add additional behind-the-scenes visibility and further your supply chain efficiency goals.
Increase Communication with Partners
Managing multiple supply chain contact points like warehouses, production facilities, and freight carriers requires constant communication. It is critical that you relay all details with these facilities to ensure that your operation meets vital timelines.
No information is too insignificant for communication. These can often be the difference between on-time delivery and a missed order.
Work with a Technologically Enabled Logistics Partner
Although the above suggestions for improving supply chain performance vary, they have one fundamental similarity. They are enabled and simplified by technology.
Technological applications can improve communication, visibility, and effectively harness data to make the necessary improvements to your operation, which is why we have built a shipper intelligence application called KanoPI.
The proprietary system allows our customers to track order status, isolate key supply chain analytics, send freight documentation, and communicate with all parts of your supply chain.
Additionally, our team of logistics experts work with healthcare shippers to create industry-specific supply chain strategies to increase performance while cutting costs.
Reach out today to see how Zipline can help you find efficiency.
