Background

Independent Living Specialists (ILS) are an Australian leader in healthcare equipment solutions. They provide innovative homecare mobility and physiotherapy equipment to retail and commercial clients.

Independent Living Specialists was in the process of consolidating several businesses with different legacy systems into a single model.

The ILS Distribution Centre supported a number of localised hubs that provided stores with equipment for sales and rental.

Business Challenge

The existing business model meant that the replenishment of stores and procurement was difficult due to disparate item coding structures, overlapping product ranges, unclear store ranging strategies and other elements.

In addition, the executive team were not confident that the consolidated financial results, as well as key metrics such as margin and inventory holdings were accurate.

Program Management Results

Combined Management Consultants was engaged to assist with an IT Strategy, Project Management and Data Conversion Support for an improved operating and business model.

CMC defined a strategy based on a Common Operating Model (COM). The COM supplemented d the existing systems to create a fully functional and integrated solution. The new solution improved visibility of inventory, better supported delivery drivers, automated workflows and item number standardisation.

As a result, ILS was able to offer an improved customer experience as well as the following business benefits:

  • A new rental management solution and driver delivery system was deployed.
  • A “model store” was built where extensive testing could be conducted prior to rollout.
  • A staff Rollout Team was established to support the rollout to all stores, including hypercare.
  • A Data Conversion and Reconciliation workstream loaded data into the new system. This also established a cross reference matrix to link codes for the same items across the organisation.
  • Extensive stocktaking was required.
  • Hundreds of users were trained, and dozens of stores migrated.
  • All non-ILS stores were migrated to the new COM prior to 30 June 2023 as required.
  • Remaining ILS stores will be upgraded to the new COM over the next few months.