Introduction
Market Dynamics
The U.S. FDA’s Unique Device Identification (UDI) Initiative
The UDI mandate, initiated in 2013 by the FDA, enabled better traceability of medical devices throughout the supply chain. Under this mandate, all medical devices sold in the U.S. were labeled with a Unique Device Identifier, which was also stored in the global UDI Database (GUDID). The regulation ensures the availability of accurate and reliable information for patients, providers, and public members, enabling visibility and transparency. In April 2016, the FDA UDI team conducted a conference in Baltimore to guide and train medical device manufacturers, healthcare providers, healthcare distribution groups, and healthcare industry professionals on how to comply with the new regulations.
High Cost of Implementation and Maintenance
The efficient utilization of healthcare supply chain management demands significant investments by hospitals and pharmacies. Small- to medium-sized hospitals and pharmacies find it difficult to afford such systems as they have controlled budgets and cannot justify long payback periods. The implementation of such software is time-consuming, which is a key concern as many hospitals are not comfortable operating for such long periods without minimum IT support. Such problems can be resolved by upgrading support and maintenance services that involve software upgrades as per changing consumer requirements, which represent a recurring expenditure amounting to almost 30% of the total cost of ownership.
Key Highlights
- Operational and supply chain efficiencies improve productivity, minimize operational cost, and achieve stable business growth.
- Improvement in supply chain analytics brings data-driven intelligence to one’s business, reducing the total cost to serve and improve service levels. The rising adoption of such analytical tools brings improvement in supply chain processes, such as planning, production, design, and delivery of services.
- There is a rise in the adoption of cloud-based supply chain analytics, and the use of cloud-based analytics solutions is one of the methods gaining traction. The introduction of cloud-based supply chain analytics helps reduce cost, ease the use of integration, planning, and scalability, and attract various supply chain management solutions.
- The integration of cloud-based supply chain analytics solutions in logistics and transportation enables enterprises to engage, connect, and collaborate with customers, business partners, and suppliers. Further, it helps enterprises build secure, reliable, and integrated systems for a transportation management system that gives real-time information to consumers.
Competitive Players
- SAP (Germany)
- Oracle (The U.S.)
- Infor (The U.S.)
- GHX (The U.S.)
- McKesson (The U.S.)
- TECSYS (Canada)
- Manhattan Associates (The U.S.)
- JDA Software (The U.S.)
- Jump Technologies (The U.S.)
- LogiTag Systems (Israel)
Recent Developments
Segmentation
- By Component
- Software application
- Supplier management software
- Inventory management software
- Other software application
- Hardware type
- Barcode scanner
- RFID
- Other hardware types
- By Delivery Mode
- On-premise
- Cloud-based