Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is partnering with SAP to launch an Intelligent Field Inventory Management (iFIM) solution. Powered by SAP Leonardo, this leverages IoT and blockchain to assist medical device manufacturers streamline surgical kit handling.
Carol Mackenzie, Global Vice President, Life Science Industries, SAP, said: “We are excited to partner with TCS on this solution for the medical device industry. By leveraging TCS’ industry expertise and commitment to quality delivery and customer focus, we are helping life science businesses make the transformational move to an intelligent enterprise.”
The rationale
Many companies manufacture and deliver medical devices across the globe. In consequence, the supply chain process of distributing surgical kits to hospitals – as well as collecting unused inventory – is highly fragmented. Such complex logistics make it challenging to ensure:
- the right kit is delivered at the right place and at the right time
- surgical kit efficacy and sterility occurs throughout the supply chain.
iFIM aims significantly to:
- streamline as well as simplify surgical kit handling
- improve patient outcomes
- optimize field inventory
- ease regulatory compliance.
- boost revenue recognition for the manufacturers (via quicker turnarounds of returned surgical kits).
iFIM
TCS’ designs its life science offerings to help customers embrace emerging digital technologies with the objective of:
- accelerating product innovation
- enriching customer experiences
- increasing productivity.
As part of TCS’ Co-Innovation Network (COIN), the Life Sciences Innovation Lab provides customers with an ecosystem to research emerging trends, develop proofs of concept and co-innovate on industry leading solutions. In this context, the iFIM solution uses:
- the Internet of Things (IoT) – to build traceability of inventory
- blockchain – to enable greater visibility of that inventory to all stakeholders.
Those stakeholders are part of a diverse ecosystem which includes:
- manufacturers
- distributors/representatives
- hospitals.
At innovation and demo centers in Cincinnati (USA), Paris (France), Mumbai (India) and Tokyo (Japan), TCS customers can gain first-hand experiences of new solutions using SAP’s new products like SAP Leonardo for IoT business. It is this which enables iFIM to:
- integrate with core systems
- scale to meet the dynamic business requirements of the life sciences supply chain.
“We have been partnering customers in the medical devices and life sciences industry, using our deep domain knowledge and expertise in digital technologies to reimagine key elements of their value chain and launch innovative products that give them competitive differentiation in a Business 4.0™ world,” said Vikram Karakoti, Head, Life Sciences Business Group, TCS.
“The iFIM Solution leverages SAP’s intelligent enterprise portfolio to utilize IoT and blockchain to help our customers digitally transform their loaner and consignment kit business models and deliver superior outcomes for all stakeholders in their ecosystems.”
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
Blockchain and medtech are coming together in ways as diverse as blockchain and fintech or blockchain and supply chain. Just consider recent examples that Enterprise Times has discussed – which include One Med Chart, Kinect, Lancor, and more.
In many instances, though not in all the above, the emphasis has some element of supply chain – as with iFIM. This makes sense when one considers the diverse range of medtech ecosystem participants – from manufacturers through logistics to hospitals and medical staff. Enterprise Times expects to see more and more of iFIM-like instances, and the lTCS link to IoT and with SAP is logical.
