Saudi healthcare supply chain firm digitises demand and supply planning

The National Company for the Unified Procurement of Medicines, Devices and Medical Supplies (NUPCO), a health care supply chain entity serving Saudi Arabia, has successfully implemented several digital supply chain solutions with Blue Yonder.

Fully owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), NUPCO is the leading provider of medical procurement, storage, and distribution services for medicines, devices, and medical supplies to 400 hospitals in the Kingdom.

To achieve its goals related to Vision 2030, NUPCO is working with its hospitals and suppliers to advance toward supporting a new business model and new approach to healthcare, all through the power of integrated technology and connectivity.

The company was looking to move from manual to digital planning processes and to utilise a single Warehouse Management System (WMS) to unify the operations of all its warehouses. The company is therefore leveraging Blue Yonder’s Luminate Planning portfolio and Warehouse Management System (WMS).

With Blue Yonder, NUPCO will be able to:

• Provide low-touch statistical forecasts for all hospitals and increase collaboration with these customers.
• Offer long-term visibility into demand and inventory for planning purposes, increasing customer satisfaction.
• Improve collaboration between internal stakeholders to determine optimal demand and supply plans for hospital customers.
• Reduce wastage and working capital by deploying right-sized inventory.
• Standardise and templatise the WMS so it is easily scalable across all current and new warehouses, providing advanced business intelligence through reports and dashboards and automated end-to-end processes for consistently high service levels and optimised cost.

Fahad M. Al Buthi, chief operating officer, NUPCO, said: “We were seeking solutions that would allow us to provide the highest quality services to our hospital customers to in turn help them provide the best health care service in the Kingdom. Blue Yonder stood out as the one supply chain solutions provider who understood our needs and could provide these end-to-end capabilities on a single platform.

“Our customers will be able to gain visibility into inventory to better plan for demand to meet their objectives – in turn helping us meet our Vision 2030.”

With Blue Yonder, NUPCO now has planning solutions that can seamlessly connect to its warehousing system, offering confidence and better control of its entire supply chain, ensuring end-to-end visibility of products to right-size inventory and guaranteeing supplies are getting to the hospitals who need them to provide care.

The WMS greatly simplifies the management of complex warehouse operations, provides real-time responsiveness against disruptions, and optimises every move in its warehouses to improve throughput and agility.

“This is our first-ever deployment of Luminate Planning and WMS solutions in the Middle East. I am proud of the team that worked hard throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure NUPCO could realise its Vision 2030 goals of providing high quality, state-of-the-art medical supplies at affordable costs to its hospital customers.

“We are looking forward to continuing the relationship with NUPCO as they continue to seek out and implement additional solutions to meet their vision,” said Johan Reventberg, EMEA president, Blue Yonder.