Following with trending of the globalization, outstanding customer service strategy and requiring much competitiveness in all areas, supply chain management got more and more challenges to plan the procurement and manufacturing, to collaborate with the vendors, to deploy stock and to build an efficient distribution network. Fueling this requirement, several software vendors started to develop a so called “Advanced Planning System” like i2, Manugistics and APO 10 years ago. These software packages can support decision making activities in supply chain management at the strategic, tactical and operational decision level. Many global, large to mid size companies in different industries, including medical device, bought APS to solve their supply chain problems.
Medical Device, a quite young industry, was introduced to the marked in the 1970’s, and had rapidly growth continuously. This industry involves very complex material purchasing, production, inventory planning and distribution network and etc. Different from the other industries, medical device has quite special characteristics like short life cycle, large SKU, regulatory control for raw materials and finish goods selling, and also the government reimbursement or private insurance policy impact, etc, which increase more uncertainty and complexity in the supply chain. In this paper, I will study the supply chain challenges in medical device, and analyze APS’s principle structure and functionalities for medical device implementation.
Besides that, the implementation of a new and advanced information technology solution shall require changes in organizational structure or supply chain strategy, especially for the rapidly growing industry - medical device. It won’t be successful if the old organization uses the old method with old process but in a totally new system. So, I also will take an empirical case as study example and research what management tasks or process shall be changed to align with the new system and maximize the performance in this paper.

Following with trending of the globalization, outstanding customer service strategy and requiring much competitiveness in all areas, supply chain management got more and more challenges to plan the procurement and manufacturing, to collaborate with the vendors, to deploy stock and to build an efficient distribution network. Fueling this requirement, several software vendors started to develop a so called “Advanced Planning System” like i2, Manugistics and APO 10 years ago. These software packages can support decision making activities in supply chain management at the strategic, tactical and operational decision level. Many global, large to mid size companies in different industries, including medical device, bought APS to solve their supply chain problems.
Medical Device, a quite young industry, was introduced to the marked in the 1970’s, and had rapidly growth continuously. This industry involves very complex material purchasing, production, inventory planning and distribution network and etc. Different from the other industries, medical device has quite special characteristics like short life cycle, large SKU, regulatory control for raw materials and finish goods selling, and also the government reimbursement or private insurance policy impact, etc, which increase more uncertainty and complexity in the supply chain. In this paper, I will study the supply chain challenges in medical device, and analyze APS’s principle structure and functionalities for medical device implementation.
Besides that, the implementation of a new and advanced information technology solution shall require changes in organizational structure or supply chain strategy, especially for the rapidly growing industry - medical device. It won’t be successful if the old organization uses the old method with old process but in a totally new system. So, I also will take an empirical case as study example and research what management tasks or process shall be changed to align with the new system and maximize the performance in this paper.

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