The i of i+solutions stands for Innovation. We believe that innovation is key to strengthen global health supply chains, which is why we have established our innovation hub. This team organizes continuous improvement cycles with supply chain teams, think tank sessions with senior staff and focus workshops with our strategic partners in the fields of logistics, finance, IT systems and data analysis.
i+solutions has well established processes and reliable systems in place to ensure the timely delivery of health products at the lowest sustainable price. Our ADANA platform provides us with end-to-end supply chain oversight, allowing us to pro-actively track and as necessary, adjust our service delivery based on clearly defined milestones and associated performance and cost indicators. Our integrated systems allow us to quote health products, freight and other value-added services to our customers; place purchase orders and manage our suppliers; plan, execute and track shipments; anticipate and mitigate potential delays; manage costs; and consistently meet or exceed our KPIs. Through our online track-and-trace system we will provide our customers full visibility of cost, service and transit time, milestone tracking and delivery performance.
Having managed the supply chain of medicines and health products for over 15 years, i+solutions recognizes that we operate in a unique and highly-complex environment. In response, we have devised a strategy that allows us to provide agile, effective and sustainable fourth party logistics services, manage and control the end-to-end supply chain on behalf of our customers, use best-in-class logistic service providers and add our own intellectual property and IT competence to deliver reliable and cost-efficient supply chain solutions, focused on customer delivery performance. i+solutions takes a data-driven and performance-based approach to managing freight and logistics, using comprehensive operational milestones to measure and control a range of KPIs, covering service level, on-time performance, lead time variance and freight cost and provide full visibility to its customers.
Instant and real time access to information as well as end-to-end visibility are important targets for i+solutions. With this, it is just as important to display correct and unambiguous information. To reach that important goal i+solutions is implementing master data synchronization according to GS1 standards. i+solutions connects via GDSN for all critical elements of item and location master data with all its major suppliers.
For the delivery of medicines and medical products, i+solutions has contracted a number of well-respected logistics service providers (LSP). Each of the LSPs offers their unique set of expertise in shipping to countries served by i+solutions under direct or donor procurement activities. In order to channel information quickly from the LSPs towards i+solutions and their clients, we established integration of the LSP milestones into our ERP by EDI messaging. This functionality supports the full transparency and visibility of any shipment channeled through the i+solutions supply chain operation.
End-to-end visibility is an important core value of i+solutions. Countries that are served by i+solutions procurement and delivery services, either directly or through donor programs, can track every transaction via the cloud-based i+track website. This tool offers visibility from requisition to order to delivery where clients can look into the status of their transactions independently. Next to the visibility, i+track also serves as an entry tool for confirmation of receipt for each of their deliveries. In this platform, clients have the opportunity to provide input in case of irregularities and upload pictures which will be reviewed by the i+solutions supply chain instantly.
Where the innovation agenda for i+ solutions has a strong connection to market dynamics and needs coming from its strategic partners, the activities around operational excellence are very much focused on a bottom-up approach.
In order to achieve operational excellence, i+solutions has implemented a robust process around Continuous Improvement. Continuous Improvement activities follow a Plan – Do – Check – Act cycle where each activity or sub-activity links to the people – process – tools element.
Continuous Improvement actions happen in quarterly cycles where in bi-weekly meetings a distinct group of different functional areas within i+solutions review the progress of the actions. These meetings also facilitate a constant flow of input of improvement tasks that are signaled by the internal teams.
Next to this, i+solutions also facilitates end-to-end process review meetings. These meetings are attended by staff working in different units and bring in their view on people-process-tools bottlenecks as well as success factors. All input is later transformed into implementation of best practices in other areas and starting improvement plans for the bottle neck areas.
This way, i+solutions keeps a close connection to the operations and stays on top of any suggestions that can bring the teams to a more efficient and happier workplace for everyone.