Emmott On Technology: Getting Smart About Managing Dental Supply Inventories

Emmott On Technology: Getting Smart About Managing Dental Supply Inventories
Thursday, April 11, 2013

Pity the poor dental assistant who mutters these barely audible words, “We ran out of that, sorry, it’s on order.”

There are few things more pitiful than a stressed out assistant running down the hall to a neighbor dentist to beg for some bonding agent. All the while cursing the other assistant under her breath for taking the last bottle and not telling anyone.

The prime directive every dental assistant in charge of supplies understands is the doctor wants what he wants when he wants it, no questions no excuses. The incentive is to order often and to order a lot.

From the supply assistant’s point of view it is far better to have a room full of extra stuff than to run out. It is better to spend a bit too much than to run out. It is better to have items on hand past their expiration date than to run out. In fact, from the point of view or most dentists it is better to do all those things than to run out of a critical supply in the middle of an appointment.

As a business manager, effective inventory management is a basic business practice which is critical to overhead control. Yet most dental offices are still using tags, spindles and paper lists. There are a number of digital inventory management systems, but most of them are flawed. The flaw is the human who needs to enter what was taken and when into the system. If the staff member won’t put the tag on the spindle or write the item on the list, they won’t enter it in the computer either.

An ideal perfect system would know what the doctor used, it would track how much of everything is on hand, it would track what and when something was used without a human making the entry and it would place an order when any item reached a critical low point.

So far the closest we have come to this ideal system is Cubex.

Cubex uses a digital cabinet to store inventory and track usage. An online management program called SIM (Smart Inventory Manager) gathers the data, and even places orders automatically as needed.

The cabinet has shelves, drawers and bins of all sizes so that every item from a large box of gloves to a single CAD-CAM block can be stored efficiently. The cabinet also has its own built in computer which connects to the Internet and SIM.

Each item is identified in the SIM program and assigned to a specific place in the cabinet. When an item is removed SIM records the event and keeps track of what is still available. Another cool feature is the computer will show you where an item is stored. If you can’t find the 25 gauge short needles, just ask the computer and a flashing light will lead you to the proper bin.

Once an item reaches a pre-determined minimum level SIM places an order online with any supplier you have set up. When the order arrives you tell SIM the order is in and simply restock the cabinet.

Remember the S in SIM stands for smart. SIM can keep track of back orders, shipping times, discounts and multiple suppliers. SIM tracks every time the cabinet is opened, who opened it and what was taken (or not).

Dental offices using Cubex have reported as much as 60% less staff time spent on inventory control, reduced supply costs of several thousand a month and vastly reduced supplies on hand. In dentistry we seldom think of this but every item in your supply closet represents money that does not go to profit. Reducing supplies on hand can free up many thousands in cash.

For the supply assistant Cubex means never having to say you’re sorry again. The future is coming and it will be amazing!

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