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Offering a comprehensive range of home respiratory therapy, home infusion therapy and home medical equipment services, Apria Healthcare is America's leading provider of integrated home healthcare products and services. Apria's home respiratory, home medical equipment and home infusion services give maximum functionality and independence to the homecare patient.

Headquartered in Lake Forest, California, Apria employs more than 11,000 healthcare professionals in more than 504 Apria branch offices across the United States. Apria Healthcare is the country's homecare leader in the alternate-site respiratory, HME and infusion markets, serving more than 1 million patients annually.

The situation

As Apria grew into a national healthcare provider, it became evident it’s antiquated, inventory and procurement solutions could not provide the level of information, security and service that was needed in the 21st Century. Both Division and Branch offices were unable to get timely and accurate perpetual inventory and cost of goods sold information, in addition to having very little visibility into incoming deliveries of replenishment orders. Both Inventory and Procurement data was fragmented across Apria’s significant national network and logistical management personnel were finding it exceedingly difficult to understand and validate inventory variances and reporting. Service levels were being negatively impacted, while significant time and energy was being expended to deal with these issues, inhibiting Apria’s desire to bring significant efficiencies to its back office operation in general and immense branch network in particular.

Solution

Already enjoying the benefits of the WORLD Financial Suite from solution provider JD Edwards, Apria turned to PCI, a nationally recognized provider of business consulting and solutions to the Health Care Industry, to help them assess the current situation and eventually replace their outdated Inventory Management and Procurement solutions. In addition, Profit Concepts was also asked to evaluate and recommend solutions for Apria’s significant and nationwide equipment rental program, along with integrating its custom order entry front end into the modernized Inventory and Procurement solutions, helping to protect Apria’s previous investment in that area.

During 2000 and 2001, Profit Concepts was successful in replacing Apria’s aging Inventory Management and Procurement solutions with modern alternatives from the JD Edwards WORLD Suite of ERP products. In addition, Apria’s entire equipment rental reporting process was also replaced with a custom solution, created by Profit Concepts’ Consultants, along with fully integrating Apria’s custom Order Entry Solution, Enabling Apria to preserve its significant investment in this solution, for years to come.

Benefits / ROI

With the modernization of its Inventory Management and Procurement solutions completed, Apria began to enjoy the benefits of a truly integrated ERP solution. For example, a major driver of this aspect of Apria’s overall modernization project was the inability of division and branch offices to obtain accurate and timely inventory and cost information. This requirement was successfully satisfied with the implementation of the new solutions from JD Edwards. In addition, local and division logistics management now had the tools with which to manage and eventually eliminate unexpected inventory variances, as well as improve inventory reporting and management.

In addition and with the successful implementation of the new solutions came effective and truly manageable security to ensure the data was secure from unauthorized manipulation, or exploitation. In addition, Apria has enjoyed a significant reduction in the level of effort it had been previously expending to both manage and procure its inventory requirements, not to mention having access to real-time inventory, cost and procurement data, both consolidated within one physical database, as well as accessible to authorized Divisional and Branch personnel alike.

The validity and integrity of its inventory and procurement data was also strengthened with the addition of a three-way matching capability, now available for all inventory items intended for rental or resell within its branch network. Better visibility into inventory being transferred between divisions and branches was also strengthened considerably, leading to dramatic improvements in overall inventory management. Lastly, but certainly not least, Apria was now in possession of the needed tools to allow its logistical personnel to effectively minimize inventory investments, while at the same time, maximizing the return on its inventory investments.

Enviroment

Oracle (formally JD Edwards) WORLD ERP, version A7.3 running on several IBM I-Series Servers deploying the application to several hundred users across the US.