“SmartTurn is our competitive advantage and has helped us overcome the burden of those regulations, and we are constantly amazed by value for the money with its SaaS WMS. Our advantage boils down to this—we can deliver the same day to our customers, while our nearest competitors are 5,000 miles away.”
- Mark Galluzzo, Vice President, West International Medical Supplies, LLC.

Company Overview

Company Overview

Based in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, West International Medical Supplies, LLC, is a venture launched by London-based medical supplier L.E. West Ltd., who has been providing medical supply solutions to the maritime industry for more than 50 years. West International is an offshore and remote medical supply specialist that is dedicated to getting supplies to its customers when they need them, with a specific focus on the cruise ship industry. West International operates a wholesale pharmacy facility in Florida where pharmaceutical products are stored, tracked, and ultimately shipped to its customers. Being located in the state of Florida, West International faces stringent regulations where every item entering the facility must be accounted for by origin and expiration date. The information must then be provided to its customers and reported to the Florida Department of Health (DOH).

The Challenge - Accurate and Real-Time Inventory Visibility

The Challenge - Accurate and Real-Time Inventory Visibility

A typical order can have more than 100 unique items, often with split batches and split expiry, thus making it time-consuming and difficult to record the quantity along with corresponding drug pedigree information on an invoice. Typically, an inventory tracking system that performs these types of tasks is expensive due to the resources needed for implementation. Because Florida’s DOH has one of the strictest sets of pharmaceutical standards in the U.S., failure to accurately capture and store this information and then pass it along to the customer can result in massive fines, if not a closure of the business.

In order to comply with these strict standards, West International needed to find a solution that would provide:

• A real-time tracking system that provided inventory visibility and information-sharing to meet stringent state compliance regulations
• Needed a flexible warehouse management system (WMS) that integrated with back-office applications
• Easy to use and deploy by less tech-savvy employees

Addressing these challenges would then lead to an efficient, streamlined warehouse management system. Additionally, such a system would also meet the market requirements for speed and agility. Being able to demonstrate accurate and timely delivery of products is essential for winning new business.

With the headquarters of all the major cruise lines based in South Florida, located in the area is essential. But, the state’s high level of regulation has forced medical suppliers to locate out of state, except for one—West International—with the help of SmartTurn.

Finding a Solution With SmartTurn

Finding a Solution With SmartTurn

“Our ability to remain compliant in one of the toughest, most highly regulated states combined with our geographic location near the major cruise lines give us a unique selling point”, said Mark Galluzzo, Vice President, West International Medical Supplies, LLC.

SmartTurn’s easy-to-use, Web-based WMS breaks the traditional enterprise model of expensive upfront license and consulting fees, lengthy deployment times, and ongoing maintenance costs. Achieving compliance with the state of Florida Department of Health was a significant challenge. West International has to accurately capture and store a variety of data including expiration dates, and batch and NCD (serial) numbers. The information must then be transmitted to a number of applications including their accounting and compliance-tracking systems.“SmartTurn offers a good degree of flexibility so we can create custom fields, for example, to better capture data we need for compliance”, said Galluzzo.

Besides an affordable price, SmartTurn offers quicker implementation time when compared to traditional installed software.“SmartTurn was operational in about a month, and from there, we have had minimal issues”, continued Galluzzo, “that alone makes SmartTurn an easy decision because the start-up costs are so attractive”. Galluzzo and his team were also delighted with SmatTurn’s customer support. “The people at SmartTurn helped us figure out what we needed to do, and we were up and running faster than we could have hoped for”, continued Galluzzo, "I pick up the phone or simply send an email to my SmartTurn Customer Experience Manager who responds and takes care of what needs to be taken care of. That is one of the reasons I love having a web-based system.”One word sums up my experience with SmartTurn’s customer support—excellent”.

The Results - Increased Accuracy and Costs Reduced

The Results - Increased Accuracy and Costs Reduced

As a result of support from the team at SmartTurn, West International were able to fully utilize the WMS and use it to expand its business: “SmartTurn’s flexibility is a tremendous benefit for us so that we easily had it operational at the ‘flip of a switch’ without worrying about significant IT investments", said Galluzzo, “as we expand our operations, incorporating SmartTurn in our overseas facilities should be straightforward and relatively painless”. West International was able to improve accuracy levels from 90% to 99% with SmartTurn’s automated system. Improving shipping accuracy can lower labor costs, reduce time spent re-creating shipping documents due to errors, and present consolidation opportunities saving time and fuel. In a nutshell, the software was able to deliver:

• Inventory visibility and compliance with state regulations
• Short implementation time and ease in integration
• Competitive advantage through faster delivery time and accuracy

By significantly improving accuracy and ensuring compliance with strict regulations, West International has been able to make full use of its geographical advantage over its competitors. Being one of very few, if not only, companies to support medical supplies for cruise ships in Florida gives West International a strong platform for growth.

To find out more about L.E. West Medical supplies, visit its website: www.le-west.co.uk