Application of Lean Tools in Medication Ordering Systems for Hospital

Abstract

Lack of efficiency and effectiveness of supply chain management systems in health care results in enormous cost for hospitals every year. One of the main critical elements of supply chain management in health care is pharmaceutical product ordering systems. Accuracy of demand estimation and agility of the delivery system are the main important factors in medication ordering systems in health care. Inadequacy of these two elements engenders a lot of waste for hospitals. Therefore, improving medical ordering systems results in significant benefit for pharmacies and hospitals. Respectively, utilization of lean tools (pull system) seems to be an effective way to improve agility of drug ordering systems as well as increase the accuracy of demand realization (push system). Thus, this research proposes to study the level of effectiveness of lean tool implementation for achieving the essential improvement in pharmaceutical product ordering systems. Following, a hypothetical case study is designed and the current medication ordering system is modeled using simulation software to generate yearly waste values; next, the drug ordering system is modified by implementation of Kanban system. Finally, the results of the modified model will be compared with the results of the initial system and optimized push system.

Publication
In Proceedings of the 2017 Industrial and Systems Engineering Conference
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