Material Management System

• The management function of hospital materials includes several areas of the hospital and could drastically affect medical institution expenses.
• RFID are supplementary technologies that can be used in combination with the Material Management System in order to have more accurate and less burdensome inventory counts.
• Purchasing in a hospital involves a purchase request, which is a document specifying quantities, timeframe, and authorization information needed to proceed with the purchase.
• Inventory control is a crucial part of hospital materials management, as the lives of patients are on the line and medical costs are increasing.
• Tracking medical inventory involves checking shipments for accuracy and ensuring that the correct supplies were loaded at the warehouse.
• Sales projections in the medical field can be wildly inaccurate, making it difficult to predict disease and accident patterns and patients are notoriously reluctant to switch doctors, hospitals and health insurance.
• Tracking inventory in comparison to actual sales is essential to prevent waste, free up cash that would have gone to excess inventory and help medical companies identify trends they might not have seen before.
• The medical field is heavily regulated, and a company that routinely fails to serve the best interests of patients can quickly find itself being investigated, sued or simply shunned by health-care consumers.
• Inventory control helps medical companies understand buying cycles, allowing them to anticipate needs based on previous cycles and smooth ordering out to fit predictable cycles.
• Buying cycles can also be tracked to determine whether trends are shifting and need to be adjusted.
• In Material Management Systems, the “Inventory Item Maintenance” screen has many sections, including a “Item Tab” used for maintenance of the attributes of an inventory item, such as product type, item class, item type, etc.
• If the balance and order activity is zero (0), items can be deleted using this option.
• Users could set the product type to group similar items for sales analysis and inventory reporting.
• Most of the inventory reports are based on a certain product type.
• The “Item Availability” form specifies inventory levels across all warehouses.
• In some cases, there are instances where items are damaged either upon receiving from the supplier or during the move from the source to another location.
• Some suppliers allow returns of the said goods that have indents or the like, with a guarantee of replacement without any additional payments.
• Damaged items are normally moved to another warehouse for them to be monitored.
• Reorder Level, Reorder Quantity, Minimum and Maximum Levels for Each Store are important parameters in inventory control.
• Inbound Inspection Upon Receipt Of: Manufactured end items, Purchased items, Sold items on sales return orders, Enterprise Planning distribution orders.
• Drugs and Consumables take up the bulk of expenditure in hospitals, making material management critical to optimize the investment in these kinds of consumable assets.
• In rare instances, expired goods may be sold to other parties at a lower cost.
• Tax configurations are usually accounted for on a per country basis.
• Customers can also arrange to take over ownership of the remaining consignment material after a certain period of time.
• Material Management Systems usually allow tax rates to be defined internally via tax codes, or imported from an external source.
• Barcode and RFID technologies are commonly used in Material Management Systems.
• The vendor maintains legal ownership of consignment materials until such materials are removed from stores.
• When undecided about how to handle defective goods, a quarantine location or warehouse can be used to temporarily house them until a final decision has been reached.
• Outbound inspection upon issue of: Materials to production.
• Inventory services provide labor and automation to quickly count inventory and minimize shutdown time.
• Cycle counting, an alternative to physical inventory, may be less disruptive.
• Common inventory handling methods include: First In, First Out (FIFO), Last In, First Out (LIFO), First Expired, First Out (FEFO).
• Material Management Systems provide an overview of the entire institution’s purchasing and inventory control processes, decision-makers can have more reliable information, and can monitor the bigger picture.
• A perpetual inventory system tracks the receipt and use of inventory, and calculates the quantity on hand.
• Inventory control system software can speed the physical inventory process.
• The following taxes can usually be processed while posting documents: Tax on sales and purchases, Additional taxes like VAT, Sales and Use tax as in USA, Withholding tax like income tax in India.
• Inventory is put into quarantine if initially rejected during production, upon completion of an operation, when specified as Move Rejected End Item to Quarantine.
• The invoice for consignment materials is due at predetermined intervals, such as monthly.
• Upon reaching their expiration dates, some goods, such as food and medicine, can no longer be utilized.
• These are all features and benefits offered by the Material Management System.