MedShare: Supply Chain Strategy

For MedShare, a nonprofit dedicated to distributing surplus medical equipment to countries around the world, supply chain excellence is truly a key driver of high performance. Accenture helped MedShare develop a new supply chain strategy to expand its good work.

Helping to save lives is what MedShare International has been doing since 1998. It collects surplus medical supplies and equipment in the United States and distributes them to hospitals and medical facilities that serve the poor in developing countries. In 2006, MedShare shipped 77, 40-foot containers and supplied 103 medical teams with "carry-on" medical supplies to countries around the world—a figure that continues to grow with the help of thousands of volunteers and generous contributions of time, products and money.

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At the heart of MedShare's operations is a robust supply chain network and IT infrastructure that inventories donated goods at the organization's Atlanta distribution center and, via a Web-based application, enables needy hospitals around the world to place online "orders" for necessary supplies. MedShare's donor base is highly diverse, ranging from small doctors' offices to medical supply distributors and manufacturers to hospitals of all sizes.

While its work to date has been impressive, MedShare recognized it could help even more people around the world if it could tap into surplus supplies and equipment elsewhere in the United States. But before MedShare could get the funding from donors necessary to expand, the organization needed a comprehensive strategy to guide its efforts.

In 2006, the organization approached Accenture for help. Accenture enthusiastically agreed, recognizing that its deep supply chain expertise could have an invaluable impact on the work being done by hospitals around the world to care for those in need.

The goal of the initiative was to identify the ideal time-phased approach to expand MedShare's "footprint" of operations outside of the Atlanta area in a way that best balanced fixed costs, ongoing operating costs, ability to better meet the need for medical supplies and relationships with donors and other partners.

A key element of the project was a strategic supply chain planning technology solution donated by LogicTools. This solution—combined with critical MedShare supply chain data and Accenture consulting expertise—enabled the project team to document and model MedShare's existing supply chain; identify and determine the locations of additional new sources of medical equipment and supplies; model the "domestic network" and recommend logical expansion locations; and recommend the operating concept for the new, expanded supply chain. While such an approach to supply chain planning may be commonplace among businesses, Medshare's ability to use a software tool to take an algorithmic, scientific approach to addressing a supply chain problem is innovative in the nonprofit setting.

The result of the project team's efforts is a detailed strategy for expanding MedShare's operations over the next five to six years that has since been enthusiastically approved by MedShare's board of directors.

With the new strategy in hand, MedShare is now in the midst of a capital campaign to help fund the build-out of its facilities, and is determining how and where to make its first steps out of Atlanta. As the organization grows and develops greater capabilities, it will take giant strides toward gathering and distributing more products to more people—and, thus, helping save more lives—around the world.