Fishbowl Inventory > Case Studies > Fishbowl Tracks All Materials Used in Procedures, and It Lets Every Practitioner Know How Many Supplies Are at Each Location

Fishbowl Tracks All Materials Used in Procedures, and It Lets Every Practitioner Know How Many Supplies Are at Each Location

Customer Company Size

Mid-size Company

Region

America

Country

United States

Product

Fishbowl Warehouse

Tech Stack

Inventory Management Software

Implementation Scale

Enterprise-wide Deployment

Impact Metrics

Cost Savings
Productivity Improvements

Technology Category

Functional Applications - Inventory Management Systems

Applicable Industries

Healthcare & Hospitals

Applicable Functions

Procurement
Quality Assurance

Use Cases

Inventory Management

Services

System Integration

About The Customer

Endodontic & Periodontic Associates, Ltd. is the largest multi-specialty dental practice in the Midwest and has been in business for more than 40 years. They have eight office locations in the southern suburbs of Chicago and three offices in Northwest Indiana. The company is a major player in the dental industry, providing a wide range of dental services to a large customer base. The company prides itself on its commitment to providing high-quality dental care and has built a strong reputation in the industry over the years. However, the company was facing challenges in managing its inventory, which was affecting its operational efficiency and profitability.

The Challenge

Endodontic & Periodontic Associates, a large multi-specialty dental practice, was facing challenges in tracking and managing their inventory. They were not tracking their inventory on a usage basis, either by patient or by office. This lack of information made it difficult for doctors to know if they were being efficient with their supplies and what they should do to increase their efficiency. The office staff would visually check their inventory levels at the end of each month and then order however much they needed to bring inventory back up to the desired levels. But the actual levels were frequently guessed at, which often resulted in higher-than-necessary inventory or even stockouts at each office. Sometimes they would even run out of items required to perform procedures efficiently. Those procedures would have to be postponed and the missing materials had to be rush-ordered at great expense. But the amount of that added expense was difficult to determine without accurate inventory tracking information.

The Solution

Endodontic & Periodontic Associates decided to implement Fishbowl Warehouse to address their inventory management challenges. They decided to store inventory for its Illinois and Indiana offices at one warehouse with only minimal inventory housed at the individual offices. Extensive processes were implemented that required each dental office to sign for all materials when delivered, both for basic supplies, office supplies, and for high-cost custom supplies, such as implants. And staff members were required to sign all Pick Tickets when they pulled together an order. Special reporting was created to track who the items were for, when they were scheduled to be used, and which doctor requested the supplies. Now, when a patient is scheduled for a procedure the dental office has to request the materials a week in advance. The warehouse transfers materials to the office on an “as needed” basis the day before and the office signs for them. When the procedure is completed, any unused materials are transferred back to the warehouse and entered back into inventory. A warehouse worker then creates a Sales Order to the specific office for the items used during the procedure and the office is billed accordingly.

Operational Impact

With the majority of inventory now being tracked at the central warehouse, proper inventory levels were much easier to determine and the levels for most items went down, resulting in lower overall levels and costs.
With more accurate information, each office manager could pull up reports on actual usage of any item used in any procedure.
The new information resulted in much more accurate reports for the year-end meetings with the insurance companies.
Now, when the material costs for given procedures go up, the offices have the data to back up their requests for higher reimbursements.

Quantitative Benefit

Stockouts at the office level only meant that more supplies needed to be sent from the warehouse, but the warehouse was able to eliminate rush orders because the inventory levels for the entire system were always high enough to meet any jumps in local demand.
Additionally, with the required detail already entered into the system, the time to prepare and create the reports has gone down dramatically.