Southfield, MI October 15, 2002 Stryker Instruments, a division of Stryker Corp., has signed a three-year deal with SupplySolution to expand its initial implementation of the solution provider's direct material fulfillment application at facilities in both the United States and Germany.
SupplySolution said its i-Supply Service provides worldwide inventory visibility, enabling suppliers to react to an enterprise's real-time to inventory movement. The potential benefits of this visibility include improved efficiencies within the company's supply chain, reduced excess inventory, the elimination of premium freight and improved operations, the solution provider said.
Kalamazoo, Mich.-based Stryker Instruments develops, manufactures specialty surgical and medical products. According to SupplySolution, Stryker began a pilot implementation of the i-Supply Service in January and saw an 18 percent reduction in the inventory dollars managed by the solution. The initial program involved 12 of Stryker's biggest suppliers.
"The implementation schedule we set was extremely aggressive, and yet SupplySolution's team was able to accommodate our needs," said Mark Lincoln, Stryker's director of manufacturing.
Spurred by the success of the pilot, Stryker elected to expand the implementation throughout the instruments division and beyond. The company's Stryker Leibinger division which manufactures instruments and implants for craniomaxillofacial and hand surgery has also agreed to use the i-Supply Service at facilities in both the United States and Germany.
"Our goal is to expand i-Supply to other divisions," said Lincoln. "As we are able to show continued success, we can move closer to adopting this as a supply chain industry standard."
The win is notable for SupplySolution, which began targeting the life sciences industry just last month after receiving $9.5 million in funding from its current investors.
"This is a tremendous and highly important win for SupplySolution, as it demonstrates the ability of i-Supply to drive notable results and improvements throughout the medical supply chain," said SupplySolution CEO Edward Molkenbuhr in a statement.
According to SupplySolution, more than 2,000 manufacturing organizations are currently using its service.
