Martin Beaulieu

TL;DR: This study focused on the experience of a Quebec (Canada) hospital adopting a hybrid version of the stockless system, under which the distributor supplied high‐volume products for the patient care unit in case quantities, leaving the institution’s central stores to break down bulk purchases of low-volume products into point‐of‐use format (eaches).

TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the possible linkage between strategic alignment and traditional competitive priorities in the supply chain, and the type of interactions with suppliers, by measuring the difference between customer's requirements and the emphasis that the organization puts on these same requirements in dealing with its suppliers.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identified the critical factors impacting on the development of purchasing groups and the importance and the nature of these factors change, depending on the developing phase of the purchasing group, as illustrated by the application that they have made of these features to the American healthcare sector.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors deal with issues such as the size of a purchasing group, the types of benefits aimed for, and the real beneficiaries of purchasing groups, based on the literature, as well as on interviews with Canadian and US health care managers.

TL;DR: RFID technology has further enhanced this leading practice and introduced the possibility of proactively managing supplies by triggering replenishment rounds based on a range of user-defined criteria, which opens the door to a large number of research avenues in the areas of capacitated vehicle routing problems, inventory optimization, and simulation.