At its core, business is not very complex. Every business is in possession of two focal metrics: a top line, and a bottom line. The top line is sales, or gross revenue, and the bottom line is costs. Of course, the difference between the two is profit (or loss).

Management of these two factors determines winners and losers in the business world. Effective management is required for both. Paramount to effective management is good information. Any manager needs good information (or data) to make good decisions. The most successful managers leverage the best data.

For almost every industry in the world, point-of-use scanning has transformed the quality of data for business management. The traditional layers between the manufacturer and the customer have been stripped away through POU scanning and the data it delivers throughout the supply chain.

For top line management, manufacturers now know immediately who is using their products - what is being consumed, by whom, at what location. And if you’ll be kind enough to answer a short survey, they can also learn “why”. These detailed data inform more effective marketing and sales activity,

For bottom line management, immediate consumption data means far more efficient manufacturing processes, supply chain management and asset allocation - driving superior cost performance.

Combine the two, and you have profit. All enabled by POU scanning and digitizing consumption data at the point of sale. Every industry, and their consumers, have benefitted from this technology.

Except one.

Summate Technologies has brought POU surgical field scanning capability to the medical device industry. Leveraging Scan Ready™ sets and trays, device manufacturers will have access to data not available - the same data that transformed the retail industry.

Summate Top Line Data:

For top line sales management, for consigned field assets the Summate system can report real time data such as:

Revenue Per Surgeon Metrics:

Revenue per case type

Summate Bottom Line Data:

Field asset management is optimized by field asset inventory management. The Summate system generates, in real time and in keystrokes:

Account Inventory, Total:

As well as real time inventory reporting per individual set/tray and account inventory to revenue ratios.

We will finish with a short historical account of retail point of sale barcode adoption. While the barcode was invented in the early 50’s, it took two decades for it to be adopted. The first large movers were Walmart and Kmart. Kmart saw initially scanning as a convenience to move shoppers through the checkout faster, whereas Walmart saw the business management and data collection potential, got way out in front with greater profit generation, and never looked back.

The moral? There are huge potential benefits for first movers into any groundbreaking technology. The companies that win in today’s world are the companies that have the best data.

Who’s ready to walk with the future? It’s time to put Scan in the Plan™ with Summate Scan Ready digital orthopedic sets and trays.

Data Deluge: How POU Scanning Will Transform the Device Industry