Amy Wesley | Intelli-Flip™ Category Sales Manager, LogiQuip®

Since January, we’ve been discussing ways to gain efficiency in your Supply Chain.  In March we started down the PAR Optimization path talking about clean data and tips for setting PAR levels. 

Now, let’s shift gears a bit from what you need to store to where you need to store it.  Have you ever walked into a supply room and felt claustrophobic?  And it wasn’t because the room was too small? 

It sounds so basic, but a disorganized, cluttered supply room makes it incredibly hard to find what you are looking for, even if what you are looking for is in the room.  This leads to inefficient stocking and picking as well as expired and obsolete products.  Here are a few tips for setting your supply room up for optimal stocking and picking:

• Make sure your PAR levels are set where they need to be.  We discussed this in last month’s post, but having the right PAR levels can remove excess inventory from the room.  This makes the room less cluttered and it is easier to navigate.  

• Label all supplies:  make sure to label ALL supplies with both the proper product name and a common name known to clinicians.  This will ensure that everybody can find what they are looking for regardless of what you call it.   

•  Color Coding Supplies:  For example, use red label holders for IV, Blood, and Wound Care related items and green label holders for Personal Care and Patient Care items.  This will draw your eye to the product location you are looking for more quickly. 

• Two-Bin Kanban Systems are great for triggering supply techs to order more supplies. However, traditional plastic bins can waste space and require maintenance to remove the dust and debris that collects in the bottom.  The Joint Commission is beginning to lean into fine mesh basket shelving with Kanban flippers that increases storage capacity and visibility and doesn’t require maintenance.    

We’ve got one more month in this series.  Come back next month to wrap up our discussion with leveraging LEAN principles. 

Amy Wesley is the Services and Intelli-Flip™ Category Sales Manager with LogiQuip® Healthcare Storage Solutions in Kalamazoo, MI which has exclusively served the healthcare industry for over 30 years. With more than 34 years of experience in healthcare, Amy is a seasoned professional with a strong background in sterile processing, procurement, surgical services, and supply chain management.  She is passionate about process improvement and workflow redesign, particularly in the supply chain space.

For all your supply chain operations questions, you can contact Amy at [email protected] or visit the LogiQuip® team at logiquip.com