Medical Device Manufacturer Turns to Kanban as Best Practice

Medical Device Manufacturer Turns to Kanban as Best Practice
By: TR Cutler
 
March 10, 2014 - PRLog -- As global major medical device manufacturers look for enterprise-wide methods to improve safety and lower the cost of operations, now more than ever, lean manufacturing principles and practices are being leveraged to produce high quality products on-demand with zero-defects at the lowest possible cost.

Keeping medical device manufacturing firms healthy is as vital as the patients served by the products manufactured. Ultriva’s Marketing Executive, Cindy Leonard, explained in the company’s current blog, that the End to End Pull or Kanban is often the first order of best-practice business process improvement for this industry sector.

“Kanban is a type of scheduling system that can be used to help a manufacturer determine what to produce, when to produce it, and how much to produce for customers and supply chain partners. Medical device manufacturers operate in a highly regulated, margin-intensive business model.  Most businesses in the sector have transitioned from a traditional paper-based manual Kanban system to a cloud-based e-Kanban system as part of lean manufacturing initiatives ensuring high quality, defect free products ranging from low cost intravenous (IV) infusion, medication and supply dispensing to respiratory care, infection prevention, and surgical instruments.” noted Leonard.

Medical device manufacturers are realizing specific benefits starting with improved responsiveness to customer demand by transitioning from push or forecast-based production to pull-based replenishment.  Other direct operating and bottom-line impacts also include improved on-time-delivery (OTD) performance, elimination of stock-outs by transitioning from MIN|MAX|Reorder Point material replenishment methods to consumption-based material replenishment.

To read the entire blog, go to: http://web.ultriva.com/ultriva-blog/bid/99983/Medical-Device-Manufacturing-Keeping-the-Supply-Chain-as-Healthy-as-the-Patients.

Ultriva’s (www.ultriva.com) cloud-based platform leverages and seamlessly integrates with leading ERP and MRP systems, to deliver an end to end pull based replenishment model. Ultriva, based in Cupertino, CA, implemented a global demand driven manufacturing model by providing full visibility, scheduling, and sequencing of production of customer orders.  The need for a collaborative transactional portal is essential and E2E (End to End) Pull allows large multi-national manufacturers to actively collaborate with customers for actual demand and synchronize with suppliers for replenishment. E2E Pull offers a better solution to balancing supply with customer demand through procurement strategies, materials and inventory policies tied to actual demand signals. Many suppliers want to provide sufficient service levels to customers and turn supply replenishment and synchronization into a competitive advantage.  The company’s global footprint is increasing rapidly with implementations in wide variety of industry sectors and enterprises such as ATK, CareFusion, Emerson, Ingersoll Rand, McKesson, Magellan, Regal Beloit, Thermo Fisher and more.  Follow Ultriva on Twitter at @Ultriva.

Ultriva, Inc.

www.ultriva.com

Cynthia Leonard

Marketing Executive

cynthial@ultriva.com

408.961.2495
End
Source:TR Cutler
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Tags:eKanban, Reduce Inventory, Vendor-managed, Saas, E2E Pull
Industry:Technology
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