Since it’s founding in 1984, American Diagnostic Corporation (ADC) has grown into one of the world’s premier suppliers of diagnostic medical supplies, personal instruments, and accessories for the healthcare industry. Its products are sold in over 30 countries and are used by thousands of healthcare institutions and millions of healthcare professionals worldwide. Headquartered in Hauppauge, NY, ADC maintains sales offices in England and Japan, which services its European and Pacific Rim distribution, and quality assurance offices in Taiwan and China, which oversees its Asian manufacturing facilities.

The company has successfully bridged the gap between high priced premium quality, domestically manufactured products, and low priced imports of questionable quality by creating the first true line of hybrid products that combine high-end products with affordability. Components for ADC’s diagnostic products are manufactured by the world’s leading ISO 9000 subcontractors. ADC then inspects, assembles, and packages the finished products in its NY facility. The company’s products are generally priced 20% to 40% below legendary domestic brands and just slightly higher then the low quality imports. ADC has nearly 100 employees running 2 shifts, most of who are employed at the Hauppauge, NY facility. The company processes approximately 135 orders and ships roughly 15,000 product pieces in about 400 cartons per day, and on average, processes 19,000 order lines per month.

American Diagnostic Corporation is the worlds largest private label supplier of stethoscopes, blood pressure instruments and pen type digital thermometers to the professional healthcare marketplace.

Powerful and Manageable

ADC was originally using an antiquated System 36 based ERP package to run the organization. The system was not Y2K compliant and was unable to manage the company’s growing operation. "We had extensive problems with this system," said Marc Blitstein, President, ADC. "It was a very simplistic system that basically allowed us to enter customer orders, manufacturing tickets and to track accounts receivable," he continued. "Inventory wasn’t maintained accurately, and we didn’t even have accounts payable live on our old system, much less general ledger. There was virtually no inventory control. "

To take full advantage of the "power" and efficiencies of any system, you have to be able to understand and master it. S2K Enterprise fit the bill!" --Marc Blitstein, President, American Diagnostic Corporation

After evaluating several systems, ADC narrowed their search to VAI’s S2K Enterprise, and one other solution provider. "Both systems seemed capable of meeting our needs. Both seemed powerful, yet manageable," said Mr. Blitstein. "We also considered a PC based solution which was quickly abandoned due to concerns with reliability of the platform. "

Extensive demos performed at ADC’s facility by VAI representative Joe Scioscia really made an impact with ADC’s decision makers. "Joe demoed each major module with all department heads present," said Mr. Blitstein. "What most impressed us was the intuitiveness of S2K Enterprise. It looked relatively easy to learn and master, particularly when compared with competitive offerings. I felt that to take full advantage of the ‘power’ and efficiencies of any system, you have to be able to understand and master it. S2K Enterprise fit the bill! "

Deciding Factors

"We visited the VAI facility and met many of the staff, including the planned project leader to determine compatibility and if we could work well together," Mr. Blitstein continued. "After all, it’s a long term partnership and so you must feel comfortable with the participants. A combination of the quality of the demos performed by Joe, the versatility and user friendliness of the system itself, the proximity of VAI to our own operation, and the competence of their project leader, Mike Duckham, really made the choice for us. Mike ultimately tipped the scales for us, as we knew we’d be ‘living’ with him for as long as we owned the system."

Reduced Errors, Greater Accuracy

"S2K Enterprise's order entry with automatic order confirmation and advanced shipping notice has been a huge benefit for us," said Mr. Blitstein. "The efficiency of the order entry process itself has been a big plus," he continued. "And customer pricing flexibility has helped eliminate the dozens of post-it notes each of our CS operators pasted to their terminals to remind them of various special or promotional pricing programs. As a result, pricing errors have dropped by 80%."

"At the same time, product scanning in shipping at the packing station has enabled us to increase shipping throughput by 60% and reduce errors for an accuracy of 99.95% on order lines shipped. We integrated S2K Enterprise with our standalone Clippership manifest system, which was initially provided by Fed Ex but today is supported by a third party. The Manifest picks up appropriate routing instructions from the system and writes back freight charges, again following pre-defined logic, to the AS400 virtually eliminating freight billing and shipping errors."

"We can turn around most custom orders in less than 72 hours – a capability NONE of our competitors can match. In fact, this automation was the ONLY way we could continue to offer a service that differentiates us so completely from our competitors." --Marc Blitstein

In addition, cycle counting along with ADC’s more structured approach to inventory management has greatly improved inventory accuracy. Boat tracking enables CS to give ADC’s customers much more accurate delivery information on out of stock product. "Instead of getting profit and loss reports quarterly from our accounting firm, we generate them monthly with S2K Enterprise," said Mr. Blitstein. "This allows the company to detect and respond rapidly to critical financial trends. We’ve even been able to reduce our reliance on our accounting firm and cut their fees considerably."

"MRP combined with suggested purchasing and tighter inventory controls have allowed us to improve inventory turns from a low of just over 2 times when first implemented to nearly 4 times today. This in turn has allowed us to reduce inventory growth by millions of dollars despite our doubling in size since implementation in November 1999." --Marc Blitstein

ADC hopes to migrate to VAI’s version 3.7 PTF 4 in 2005, and implement VAI’s latest forecasting capabilities and landed cost module. "We’d also like to migrate to the GUI platform for tighter Microsoft Office integration," said Mr. Blitstein. "This would allow for more targeted marketing and customer service initiatives use. By end of 2005, we hope to implement EDI which can be utilized on nearly 30% of our customer order volume." VAI looks forward to assisting ADC in accomplishing its mission to produce value priced professional diagnostic products for the healthcare marketplace.