When you’re manufacturing and shipping a product that affects people’s lives, you’ve got to get it right. There’s no room for error in the process of getting the product to your customers.

At one leading healthcare products company, they have high standards for their products. Virtually all of their nutrition product goes on incubation hold once it reaches the Logistics Centers operated by DSC Logistics and can be released only by the company. And, they have rigorous quality hold (QA) requirements.

But, the system that managed their inventory couldn’t ensure that the standards were met. It wasn’t automated or standardized, so there was always the possibility of human error. Logistics Center employees had to be constantly alert to emailed and/or faxed spread sheets about holds and releases.

“We’ve got to solve this,” said DSC. And, solve it we did. The healthcare products company did not have to make any IT changes. Our IT team did the work, designing an automated system that resulted in 100% success, more than 150,000 orders shipped without a single hold error in any of them. We got rid of the uncertainty, randomness and possibility of human error in the company’s operation.

We standardized the template that the company uses, controlled the process and created a Business to Business (B2B) email solution. In our system, when the company wants to communicate a change of status (COS) for a product, putting it on or releasing it from QAR hold, they send one standard B2B Document to DSC corporate. DSC automatically validates the Business Document and processes the requirements. The business requirements are sent to all of our Logistics Centers with this customer’s accounts and used by the Warehouse Management System (WMS) to place product on hold or release product from hold. Receipt of a B2B is automatically acknowledged, and when a requested change has completely processed in the WMS, an email report automatically confirms the change to the customer and Logistics Centers.

And, yes, our system has monitoring and backup procedures. “Super users” have the ability to manually release or hold product, and reports are emailed to supervisors. 

Our customer had a problem and we solved it. We help our customers change so we can meet their needs. And, we have high standards too.