Using MSCM to manage home care/DME inventory

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JonA
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    Our Home Care/DME business is looking for a better way to manage their inventory.  They currently have a main warehouse, which is just a par location in Lawson, and a number of showrooms and trucks that deliver equipment and supplies to customers/patients.  They use TIMS for equipment rentals. The problem is they don't readily know how much of a particular item they have at each site unless they call the person working at the showroom or driving the truck and ask them to do a count.  Also, transferring items from the main warehouse is a manual process.  We here at the medical centers utilize the par replenishment and cycle count part of MSCM but not RAD.  I would like to set up each location (main storeroom, showrooms, trucks) as inventory locations and the staff can transfer supplies/equipment between them. They want to be able to scan items as they go out of the showroom or truck thereby reducing manual entry as much as possible. 

     

    I would like to know if anyone is using RAD for Home Care/DME.  Also can you use the handhelds to receive intransit transfers from one inventory location to another?  When you use the handheld to issue stock, say from a truck, can you scan the UPC code on the packaging or do you have to scan a Lawson barcode (item number)?

    Jon Athey - Sr. Supply Chain Analyst - Materials Management - MyMichigan Health
    Michelle Wetzel
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      Hi Jon -
      I'll be interested to see what responses you get from this. We don't use MSCM for our DME or HomeCare though we do use RAD to receive and deliver packages throughout the hospital and our offsite clinics. What we've found from our experience is that you do need a Lawson barcode/item number to issue stock. We issue from the storeroom, transfer to a shelf for staging by using the printed Lawson barcode for the shipment and then the shipment is picked up by the delivery van and taken to the final location where we do a final delivery in the HHT.

      I don't believe you can transfer between warehouses in the handheld. One of our other perpetual inventories puts the requests in Lawson which turns them into a requisition. From there, they can be picked in the handheld, transferred as many times as need be and finally delivered. The moment it is picked and released though the inventory is decremented from the storeroom and incremented in SPD (Sterile Processing) (not when it is delivered).

      One of the issues with adding multiple inventories is that you will need to build them as inventories in Lawson as well and have adjustments, etc, hit the general ledger. Someone will also have to manage those inventories, troubleshoot any issues in Lawson, etc.

      Michelle
      JonA
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        I'm thinking you have to be in range of the internal network for the handhelds to communicate with the MSCM server so for the delivery trucks they wouldn't be able to scan the shipment for delivery to the customer.
        Jon Athey - Sr. Supply Chain Analyst - Materials Management - MyMichigan Health