Ananda Yuvaraj, a Lead Planning Specialist for Business Operations talks about the significance of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) in our exclusive expert interview. Ananda has 20+ years of experience implementing critical projects in a diverse range of industries including Biotech-Pharma, Chemicals, Oil & Gas, Textiles, Transport and Mining for several Fortune 500 organizations.
How is the Healthcare industry being affected?
COVID-19 virus has spread throughout the world and there is news of the drastic shortages of personal protection equipment (PPE) and many vital components such as oxygen equipment, respirators, ventilators, and hospital beds. Many top suppliers failed to meet the sudden demand of these healthcare products. Shortage of PPE and test kits not only delays the treatment for the infected but also spreads to medical practitioners who treat the patients with inadequate protection.
How is the industry responding?
The only way to confront this pandemic is by making the Medical device manufacturers move fast enough to respond to customers and daily and hourly necessities. Because of which the manufacturers are facing a huge risk in the supply chain. To minimize the risk, manufacturers are spending more on ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) since the ERP platforms have control over the inventory, procurement, supply chain management, production planning and manufacturing.
What is ERP?
ERP or Enterprise Resource Planning technology, in general, is software consisting of various modules. These modules are designed to integrate with internal and other ERP data and fill the gap within departments such as human resources, finance, billing, and inventory in organizations like healthcare where the departments work in silos. ERP helps in storing huge patients' EHR (Electronic Health Record) details and transfers the information among the departments by integration for easy access to information and patient care. High data security helps in maintaining confidentiality in patients' records.ERP also helps in better analytics with business intelligence to make better decisions on budgeting, procurement of medical devices, inventory, and financials of patients' payments and operating costs.
How is the healthcare industry making use of ERP?
Today, the hospitals that have implemented an ERP system are able to manage a better business process in financial operations, revenue, procurement, and human resource management and are able to make faster and value-based decisions.
Due to the increase in complexity and day by day advancement in the medical devices industry, all the manufacturers and distributors need to have complete visibility of the production process. Tools such as SAP Plant Maintenance expedites the manufacturing operation and covers the three main areas such as maintenance, inspection, prevention, and repair. It forecasts the schedule for preventive maintenance. It ensures the timely maintenance activity of the medical equipment.SAP innovations make use of Intelligent enterprise technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to provide users a clearer picture of how their medical devices are performing. It captures labor cost, and materials necessary for production and maintenance of medical devices and shows labor time, inventory on hand, and real-time information on current operating conditions.
