3 Ways to Improve Your Medical Device Supply Chain
In a year that has seen a degree of optimism regarding global supply chain news — at least compared to recent years — a notable exception is the medical device supply chain. Since the COVID-19 pandemic revealed many weaknesses in the U.S. medical supply chain’s ability to provide life-saving tools and equipment in times of crisis, some U.S. lawmakers have worked to prevent these weaknesses from being a concern ever again.
For example, in November 2023 as part of the inaugural meeting of the White House Council on Supply Chain Resilience, President Biden announced new efforts to bolster the domestic supply chain for essential medicines and medical countermeasures.
“To ensure Americans always have the essential medicines and other critical medical products we need, we must have more control over our supply chains,” said HHS Secretary Becerra at the council. “In addition to having the necessary data and insights for visibility into supply chain disruptions, we need to be better positioned to help our partners in the private sector mitigate supply chain disruptions. The actions we have taken today, and will continue to take, accomplish these goals.”
Such measures, however, will take time to implement, which means that medical companies and their suppliers will have to make efforts to improve the supply chains on their end. With this in mind, there are a few areas to consider:
1. Transportation and Warehousing Optimization
Medical device manufacturers need to carefully consider their relationships with their suppliers and their distribution networks from both a quality standpoint (proper warehousing packing, climate control, shipping procedures, etc.) and a regional standpoint (where the storage is located). With looming concerns regarding the tensions between China and Taiwan, supply chain diversification must be prioritized, with particular favor toward on-shore or near-shore supplier and warehouse partners. As an industry-leading component and part storage partner, for example, Partstat stores all customer materials in our climate-controlled facilities right outside of Orlando, Florida.
2. Optimized Inventory Management
Medical device manufacturers need to emphasize absolute transparency between themselves, their suppliers, and their supply chain partners. This can include investment into automated management tracking systems that use RFID technology, but it can also include improved inventory purchasing strategies. The Partstat Inventory Ownership Solution, for example, allows customers to purchase critical inventory directly from authorized distributors without any loss in upfront capital. The inventory is stored securely in Partstat’s storage facilities, and the customer can use the capital saved for technology investments that tackle today’s supply chain challenges. Full tracking and monitoring of the inventory at Partstat in real-time also work to streamline supply chain visibility and limit waste and unnecessary additional purchasing.
3. Improved Legacy Product Management
Given the extended lifecycles of many pieces of medical equipment such as MRI scanners, medical device manufacturers need to be extremely cautious regarding the purchase of legacy service parts needed to support the products for their entire lifecycle. Not only do the components need full traceability to prevent the influx of counterfeit materials into medical designs, but they also need to have proof of industry-leading inspection and functionality testing measures. All of this is provided through Partstat’s Legacy Product Support, where all legacy service parts come with a full 12-month warranty that includes inspection, functional testing, and all firmware updates. Partstat provides a broad line of products including motherboards, CPUs, hard drives, optical drives, GPUs, memory modules, power supplies, networking controllers, RAID controllers, and fans, and we have provided services for many of the world’s leading medical device manufacturers. For more information, check out some of our many success stories here!