THE FATHER OF MODERN MATERIALS MANAGEMENT

Did you know......?

Henry Ford, the father of the production line, is also the father of modern Materials Management in a non-military setting. Henry saw the need for reliable sources of supplies to keep his production lines humming. And he saw how a supply chain originated at the level of raw materials and continued in an end-to-end architecture to the finished product. Through his innovations in supply chain management he vastly improved the quality of an automobile while reducing the price to consumers by over 75%. Starting with Ford the American auto industry had long been the world’s laboratory for inventory management and logistics concepts.

The now defunct Healthcare Materials Management Society (HCMMS) was the first healthcare supply chain professional society (and where I got my first professional credentials - CPHM). It started as a specialty subgroup of the International Materials Management Society: a group then dominated by auto industry executives. HCMMS eventually spun off in the mid-1980's due to the perceived differences between the needs of heavy industry and healthcare. Seems the industry officials were appalled by the inability of healthcare MM's to plan production. I guess we should figure out a better way for society to get specific ailments on a scheduled basis. Also, by the early 1980's the average hospital used and tracked more than 75 times the number of items used by the average auto manufacturer! It has only gotten more complex. And we don’t know what the ED will use this afternoon.

It is now broadly recognized that the same concepts that work in one industry will work in another: good supply chain is based upon a few good management principles tailored and applied to our particular circumstances. Uniqueness is a terminal concept.

Today we should salute all the members of the supply chain from manufacturers through distributors, and all of the many healthcare based supply chain professionals who collectively make our uncertain industry capable of performing at high confidence levels through rapid response techniques and ever evolving end-to-end architectures.

Tomorrow: “World Class Technology”