Al-Shifa Medical Supplies: Full batch and expiry traceability across a 300-clinic distribution network
Medical supply batch tracking ran on manual, disconnected files, causing recurring losses from expired stock and painfully slow responses to recall requests and tenders. We deployed Avanta with lot and expiry tracking at the movement level, first-expiry-first-out dispensing, and auto-generated tender quotations.
100%
Batch traceability from supplier to point of use
85%
Reduction in expired-stock losses
60%
Faster tender quotation preparation
Background
Founded in 2014, the distributor supplies medical consumables — from gloves and syringes to laboratory reagents — to over three hundred private clinics, hospitals, and government entities, while regularly bidding in public procurement tenders. Its catalog exceeds four thousand items, many under strict storage conditions and relatively short shelf lives, making traceability both a regulatory and commercial necessity. The company grew steadily, but its tracking systems stayed frozen in time: spreadsheet files maintained by the quality team as best they could.
The challenge
Linking a sold item to its specific batch required manual research taking days — simply not an option when a regulator demanded an immediate recall of a particular lot. The company lost substantial value annually to stock expiring in the warehouse or in reps' custody before sale, because dispensing followed arrival order with no regard to actual expiry dates. Tender preparation consumed a full week of gathering prices and conformity certificates, and the team repeatedly missed submission deadlines — forfeiting entire contracts.
The solution
We activated lot-number and expiry tracking at the level of every warehouse movement, enforcing first-expiry-first-out (FEFO) dispensing so no newer lot ships before older stock is exhausted. Three-tier advance expiry alerts — at three months, six weeks, and one week — now reach procurement and sales with suggested remedies like promotions or inter-branch redistribution. The unified item file embeds conformity certificates and registration documents, turning tender paperwork from manual collection into automatic extraction, while a mobile sales app gives every rep live stock visibility and credit-limit status before committing to anything.
Implementation
The rollout took fourteen weeks under a joint committee of quality and warehouse management. Five weeks went to item coding and entering existing lots with their numbers and dates from original supplier documents, followed by a barcode-verified full count confirming system-versus-reality alignment. A three-week pilot then ran on two sections — surgical consumables and reagents — where we tuned barcode-receiving rules and blocked any manual movements bypassing them. The final six weeks extended coverage to the full catalog, deployed the mobile app to all sixteen reps, and activated the tender-quotation engine.
The outcome
The first post-go-live recall took just forty minutes: the system identified every clinic that had received the affected lot and issued its reports instantly, instead of three days of searching legacy records. Expiry losses fell 85% in year one as early disposition became an automated rule rather than an individual initiative. Tender offers are now prepared within two days instead of five, with complete conformity attachments extracted from item files — and the team has not missed a single deadline since.
Lasting impact
Major government entities now list the distributor as a preferred supplier thanks to its documentation readiness — a clean traceability record turned from a compliance burden into a direct competitive edge. Batch-level margin data enabled management to evaluate launching a private-label packaging line, a decision unthinkable two years earlier when no item's true cost was known. New-rep onboarding dropped from a month to a single week, because the mobile app now enforces correct workflow by design.
Next step
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