All Entries Tagged With: "supply chain"
The Vital Importance of Controlling Your Hospital’s Supply Chain Expenses
Everyone is into saving money, which is one of the prime objectives of supply chain management. However, a supply chain professional’s job shouldn’t end there. It is equally important to control your hospital’s supply chain expenses or all of your savings gains can be swept away, almost overnight, by waste and inefficiency in your supply [...]
The Next Wave of Hospital Supply Chain Savings Opportunities
I can never say this too many times: If you are depending on price and standardization to keep your supply chain savings alive over the next few years, think again. These savings aren’t going to be available to you in abundance. However, I have listed below the next wave of hospital supply chain savings opportunities [...]
The Cold Hard Facts About Supply Utilization Management
We often talk about utilization management in these terms: If not now, when? We can make this statement because utilization management is the only savings area left in your vineyard. Not only has your low-hanging fruit been picked and standardization been substantially achieved, but now your pricing is slowly disappearing. This isn’t conjecture any longer; [...]
How Supply Chain Leaders Are Leveraging “Big Data”
Healthcare organizations generate a lot of “big data”, from ongoing operations, that is available to supply chain professionals to analyze if they have the right power tools, the right mindset, and the inclination to do so. You see, supply chain leaders have figured out that they can leverage their healthcare organization’s “big data” and turn [...]
Changes, Past and Future, In Value Analysis Analytics
We have all heard the phrase, “In God we trust, all others bring data” which is a maxim that was coined by Edward Demming, the father of statistical quality control, to emphasize that if you follow the data it will lead you to the answers to all of your questions about cost, quality, and safety. [...]
How the “Control Tower” Approach Can Up Your Savings Game
There is a new concept in industrial supply chain management circles called “control tower” that mimics how an air traffic controller manages hundreds of planes at one time with their radar, radio communications, and their keen observations. Mike Landry, President of Barkawi Management Consultants, tells us that this “control tower” approach goes beyond incremental improvement [...]
4 Things You Should Know About Supply Utilization Management
After 16 years of research, investigations, and hands-on implementation of scores of supply utilization management programs, we have identified four things you should know about supply utilization management: 1. It’s a strategy you can no longer afford to ignore: Price and standardization have been the primary supply chain cost containment strategies for decades. Now that these [...]
Less Is More: This Should Be Your Mantra
I just read that Office Depot cut their supply chain waste by tens of thousands of dollars a year by slashing their packaging waste by switching from corrugated cardboard to paper bags for deliveries to their customers. I call this tactic, “less is more” which should also be your mantra for your value analysis teams, [...]
Segmenting Your Supply Chain Expenses for Greater Efficiency and Performance
I often talk about how a “one-size-fits-all” philosophy is counterproductive in supply chain expense management, since there is no such thing as an ideal customer. All customers have different wants, needs, and desires to meet their job requirements, especially when it comes to the products, services and technologies they buy. That’s why we need to [...]
Reducing Waste and Inefficiency Is Everybody’s Job
Everyone in healthcare management is asking this question: Where are our next savings opportunities coming from, now that our revenues are shrinking, volume will be increasing, and quality is job one? This isn’t a new challenge, since other industries have faced this same test and have won this battle. They have done so by driving [...]
