Medical Supply Inventory Management
Consumables and implants tracked by lot and expiry, with replenishment and billing that follow consumption.
The problem it solves
Expiry waste is invisible until someone counts. It sits at the back of a shelf, in date on the day it was ordered and worthless by the time anyone looks.
Hospital supply rooms fail in two directions at once — expensive items expiring unused while something critical is out of stock in the next cupboard. Both come from the same cause: nobody knows what is actually there without physically checking, so ordering is defensive and rotation is accidental.
Tagging consumables with lot and expiry data makes both solvable. Smart cabinets and handheld counts keep quantities live, oldest stock is flagged for use first, and expiry warnings arrive with enough notice to use the item rather than write it off. Consumption reads also close the billing loop on implants and high-value consumables that currently get used and never charged.
The workflow
Four steps, in this order. A step out of sequence is a broken process, not a variation.
- 01
Receive
Items are tagged with lot and expiry at goods-in and bound to the supply catalogue.
- 02
Stock
Smart cabinets and shelf reads maintain live quantities without anyone performing a count.
- 03
Consume
Removal is captured at the cabinet or by handheld, decrementing stock and — for chargeable items — raising the billing event.
- 04
Reorder and rotate
Reorder points fire on real quantities; expiry alerts surface early enough for the item to be used.
What it is
made of
Four layers, in the order data moves: a tag is read, the read becomes an event, a rule decides what it means, and a business system acts on it.
- 01
Tags
What carries the identity
- UHF tags on consumables and implant packs
- Lot and expiry encoded at receiving
- Tamper-evident on high-value implants
- 02
Readers & edge
What turns presence into an event
- Smart cabinets with continuous counting
- Handhelds for shelf counts and theatre stock
- Portals at supply room entries
- 03
Platform
What decides what the event means
- Lot and expiry ledger
- Reorder rules and expiry alerting
- Consumption-to-billing events
- Theatre and department usage reporting
- 04
Integrations
What acts on the decision
- ERP
- HIS
- Billing
What we supply
- 01
Smart cabinet
Counts its own contents continuously. Nobody performs an inventory; the cabinet reports one. Justified where stock value is high enough to pay for the enclosure.
- Internal antenna array
- Continuous presence counting
- Access control by staff badge
- Removal events to billing
- 02
Consumable tag
Carries lot and expiry so rotation and recall both work off the tag rather than off a label somebody has to read.
- UHF, lot and expiry encoded
- Sterile-pack compatible
- Applied at goods-in
- Readable through packaging
What to expect
Ranges, not single flattering figures. Baselines are captured for four to eight weeks before a pilot starts, so the delta is measured rather than claimed.
- Expiry waste
- 20–40% lower
- Stockouts
- Alerted before they bite
- Chargeable capture
- Consumption-linked
- Count labour
- Largely removed
What to plan for
Every module has a failure mode. These are the ones that actually bite on this one, and what we do about them — because finding out later costs more than knowing now.
- Smart cabinets are a significant capital cost per unit and cannot be justified everywhere.
- Mix the estate — cabinets only where stock value warrants it, handheld counting everywhere else. Most sites get the majority of the benefit from handhelds plus expiry alerting alone.
Your existing systems
- ERP
- HIS
- Billing
Where it earns its keep
- Hospitals writing off expired implants and consumables
- Theatres where high-value items are used and never charged
- Supply chains carrying defensive overstock against unknown quantities
Before you
buy
The things operations directors actually ask on the first call.
Do we need smart cabinets everywhere?
No. They earn their place where stock value is high — implants, expensive consumables. For general supply, handheld counting plus expiry alerting captures most of the benefit at a fraction of the cost.
Can tags survive sterilisation?
Sterile-pack compatible tags are applied to the outer packaging, not to the sterile field. Items requiring in-pack tagging need specific tag selection, which we scope per item type rather than assume.
Does this handle recalls?
Yes — lot data on the tag means a recalled lot can be located across every cabinet and shelf in the hospital as a query rather than a physical search.
The rest of healthcare
- 01
Medication Administration Verification
Bedside checking of the Five Rights — patient, drug, dose, route and time — before administration.
- 02
Drug Authentication
Serialised packs verified at receiving and at dispense, with chain of custody in between.
- 03
Patient Identification & Tracking
Wristband identification and movement checkpoints that improve safety without turning a ward into a checkpoint.
- 05
Laboratory Sample Tracking & Chain of Custody
Every custody transition logged from collection to report, so a missing sample has a last known holder.
Let's design theright system foryour floor
- Call+880 1713 819528 · 01713 222558
- Emailservice@ratsbd.com
- VisitGround Floor, House-7, Road-13, Sector 14, Uttara, Dhaka-1230
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