Item Master Fields - Major Minor Class

Kat,
As a healthcare organization in California, and having a fair number of acute care sites, a lot of our build and structure decisions were designed to align to OSHPD (a governmental oversight agency). So our Major classes (both Purchasing and Inventory) are driven by the primary OSHPD product and service identifiers. In our case, ".41" is general medical supplies, so we created "4100" as the equivalent Major Class. The minor classes were intended to give us the ability to report at a more detailed level, but, honestly, most minor classes are just a hodgepodge of inconsistent descriptions. The only one area where this is not quite the case is pharmaceuticals. In OSHPD parlance, these are ".38" (and generally 3800 as a Major Class), but I actually built a hybrid model that utilizes the AHFS pharmacy classification system for the major and minor classes.

As far as UNSPSC, we do use it extensively. We have developed an internal cross-reference between the UNSPSC code and the Major Class. It is not bullet-proof, but it works pretty well. Using the UNSPSC as the primary framework for the Major/Minor Classes is probably not a bad way to go, but I would have a couple of concerns.

1) UNSPSC classifications change from time to time. The current version is 16.0901, and I believe that version 17 is being prepared for voting/ratification. If I remember correctly (not at all guaranteed) there will be a significant focus on medical supplies (42-00-00-00 and down). In previous iterations, I have seen the same basic description travel to a different Family or Class, but this is rare.

2) The other concern would be your "Source of UNSPSC Truth". I have not seen any UNSPSC codes supplied by manufacturers or distributers to speak of. We use a separate partner to review and classify our items, but their focus is on medical supplies. You would think that would cover our needs, but pharmaceutals and office supplies rarely get anything more than the very top-level assignment. Where our partner does not classify an item, or does not go into enough detail, we are left to determine the UNSPSC. That, however, can be very subjective (which was one of the things we were hoping to do away with when we adopted the UNSPSC).

Overall, I do not think using the UNSPSC as a basis for your Major/Minor Class framework is a bad choice, but you may have to address versioning issues.
Good luck,
Red

Our Purchasing Class structure was initially and for the most part currently built to mimic the account the supply would primarily be charged to. But we've also use it to prevent requesters from "seeing" certain items or groups of items by assigning specific classes in RQ04. We don't do this anymore because it was difficult to maintain. Inventory classes are used to identify supply groups (PPE, Solutions, Catheters, Wound Care, Lab, Office, etc.) for inventory tracked items only.

We have about 84,000 active items and a little more than 45,000 have UNSPSC assigned. We used our primary GPO, Premier, as the source of truth for most. Otherwise, as Red said, it's subjective, but our item master controller is pretty good at determining the correct code. They wouldn't relate to our classes really.

Thanks for the responses!

Red - RE: our "Source of UNSPSC Truth". We get and maintain the UNSPSC via NuVia, so we have control over the versions and can report on the changes. 99.5% of our active item master has UNSPSC inputted. So as I envisioned it, it's just a matter of maintaining the change to the classes whenever a change to the UNSPSC occurs. The initial build of the item includes UNSPSC and classes now - we should be able to modify that fairly easily.

Jon - Our current class structure is similar but was inputted by the buyers, so of course staff turnovers mean that the classifications are off. We've found different sizes of the same product classified in two distinct (but similarly named) ways.

Slightly related - does anyone track in Lawson if an item is stock/non-stock for your med-surg distributor?

We do not track whether an item is stock/nonstock at the distributor.

Hi Kat,

We currently track the items status with the distributor through item attributes. 

Stephanie

 

 

We just started trying to track our supplier's stock status. I chose to populate the information in the user field of the PO13 (.1 or .3). This does not make it explicitly visible to the end-users, but it does make it reportable (in the POPIVUF table). The benefit of this method versus the Item Master, is that this is both vendor-specific and SKU/part number specific. The latter is crucial because we have a small third-party-logistics (3PL) program with out primary distributor. The 3PL items have a different SKU (where there is overlap) so the "stock status" for the same item could be be both "STK" and "3PL".

Thanks all - the issue has come up where our surgery centers are ordering from the distributor - we recently switched distributors and there are "growing pains" where the end users are stating they need to see potential lead times on an item in Lawson.

Give the cost of maintaining categorization for so many items, it may be worth backing up for a moment and asking how much categorization you need. In all likelihood your GL accounts will give you a pretty good first cut at categorization, and you can be pretty sure that those are accurate, assuming that your IC11 issue account and your IC12 GL Categories are accurate. Nothing like costs going to the wrong bucket to motivate a quick response.

Given that those are accurate and free (or mandatory), the next question is how much more granularity you need. Purchasing class would be very useful depending on your replenishment workflow, or it might be dead weight if you ultimately decide not to use it.

Another good and (nearly) free categorization might be your CDM codes, depending on how granular those are, though they may be essentially the same as your account.

I'm not against UNSPC or any of the other mechanisms. It's just that they are heavy, and adding overhead only to watch it lie there mostly unused or of mostly theoretical benefit is painful. A good item master report will bind together all your major data sets: IC11, IC12, PC10, PO13, PO20, PO25, and possibly others. When you put those together you may be able to get what you need without any additional initiatives.

Our medical supplies account is pretty inclusive- 4x4 gauze to cardiac catheters and stents to urinary incontinence products- so we need more granularity if we're going to run usage reports on wound care supplies or CRM devices. But I see your point.

Hi sea2sky - thanks for the "devils advocate" - we are not looking to implement UNSPSC - they are already implemented and maintained as part of our load. There is no additional cost to maintain.

Our GLs are not a good classification. (Welcome to healthcare!) "General Med-Surg Supply" and "Implantables" are 110K of my 120K item master, but yes, they count towards our classification system. So do the generic nouns.

The Value Analysis teams have gone through the "basics" and at the moment, there's no real savings to be had in our gauze and gloves. As with Jon, "Catheter" is one noun that sits in General Med Surg GL. Nursing hates "Catheter" as a classification - they want to know foley, urethral, arterial, etc. Value Analysis wants to know area of use and reimbursement status. The UNSPSCs - which are already loaded, not an additional expense - are helping in that analysis.

This why I was considering making Major Minors out of the Family Class.

Slight tangent - there are no Lawson reports that pull in the major datasets you mention. That would be an SQL that does cost us a major amount of overhead to maintain. I have to get with IT, explain the need, troubleshoot the query and monitor it for discrepancies, explain any changes etc to IT to push any changes back out. Or I have to write and run the SQLs on demand - either way it bottlenecks. What Lawson solutions to SCM reporting have you seen to reduce this?