Why ERP for Medical Device Manufacturing Industry?

The medical gadget sector is benefitting from main advances in wi-fi expertise, miniaturization and computing energy, fueling improvement of recent related medical devices that can generate, collect, analyze and transmit data. Consumers have been increasingly adopting smart healthcare technology similar to smart insulin pens, related inhalers and bronchial asthma monitors, empowering them to handle their own health more successfully.

The smart gadget revolution is radically changing manufacturing and customer experience while the arrival of subscription services, device rental and leases is reinventing the industry’s business model. Manufacturing technology gives the means to pivot the business model efficiently.

Medical device manufacturers have always had an extensive array of rigorous manufacturing necessities. They should build complex products to express specifications and tolerances, that are extremely regulated, and should operate for an extended period — potentially throughout a patient’s lifetime.

But with smart devices, manufacture of the device is just the start of the journey, because clients will potentially spend much more on providers for a device throughout its lifespan than they’ll on its initial purchase.

This has significant implications for technologies similar to ERP systems that present the backbone for operational excellence and improve medical device manufacturers’ competitive benefit with highly effective capabilities to become more customer-centric and deliver higher value.

Technologies that present the backbone for operational excellence, similar to enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, also enhance competitive benefits.

Here are six key capabilities that medical device manufacturers should look for of their ERP systems to support shifting enterprise models and requirements:

1. Traceability

Advanced ERP toolsets enable serial control from cradle to grave — from component stage to meeting and through to transport completed goods — so manufacturers have complete end-to-end traceability. This allows manufacturers to trace the origin of a selected part or complete product batch throughout the supply chain.

Often traceability is completed outdoors the ERP system, but this makes it difficult to track the elements inside the system or to know which customers received the device or certain components. Having traceability as an integrated function of the ERP system ensures commercial flows are synched with quality flows.

2. CAD/CAM-ERP Integration

Bills of materials (BOMs) in the medical device business should be precise. However, as many have experienced, during design-build, elements can develop into out of date. CAD/CAM-ERP integration might help manufacturers keep up with constant design and engineering change orders, providing a bridge between the design specifications and how that design is executed on the production floor, giving manufacturers improved ability to accommodate frequent modifications to BOMs and support their expedient translation into production work orders.

3. Quality Management

It is important for medical device manufacturers to reduce risk, monitor in-process quality and ensure regulatory compliance. FDA regulations mandate monitoring and monitoring of products in use. When a possible drawback is discovered, manufacturers should implement a Corrective and Preventive Action (CAPA) process. Quality management should additionally dovetail with suppliers’ quality management processes. An automated system ensures organizations have quality finest practices integrated into operations and may handle the complete breadth of quality and compliance mandates.

4. Enterprise Asset Management

Enterprise asset management (EAM) can assist preventive upkeep to enhance output and high quality and reduce waste. These capabilities assist plan and schedule upkeep tasks to minimize manufacturing downtime. Enterprise asset management keeps an entire history of equipment, supplies and work orders as well as pertinent particulars similar to in-service date, equipment location, guarantee expiration date, and preventive upkeep plans based on time intervals and/or meter readings.

5. CRM and Case Management

Integrated CRM (customer relationship management) capabilities enable medical device manufacturers to raised understand, handle and grow their customer base. Subscriptions, system rental and leasing all place greater emphasis on offering consistent customer touchpoints and managing ongoing interactions throughout the client life cycle. When issues come up, case management helps effective team collaboration to reply and manage problem resolution.

6. Field Service and After-Sales Service/Support

Medical device manufacturers can benefit by having built-in ERP capabilities to help after-sales service, and help similar to unscheduled upkeep, guarantee management, spare elements, restore and defect identification. This requires proper data management with product and element details, in addition to historical monitoring of service and repairs.

Field service capabilities can dispatch and schedule the best people at the right time, connecting the again office with technicians within the area for better, faster issue resolution. Advanced ERP solutions can even handle automated distress signals from devices that have Internet of Things (IoT) capabilities to self-detect and diagnose a problem.

New enterprise models and changing requirements require advanced ERP

As medical device manufacturers usher within the next era of smart sophisticated medical gadgets, they need to consider their present ERP solutions to make sure it has the key capabilities to help their evolving enterprise strategies. These six advanced ERP capabilities will assist energy aggressive benefit, enhance agility and effectivity, and allow medical device manufacturers be more responsive to shifting customer needs.