IC11/PO13

IC11 is locked down but PO13 is open for our buyers to input replacement items, etc. Our old system was wide open to all the buyers and it was a disaster in terms of item adds and standardization.

Dan, as with all things... It depends. Primarily, I would think that it depends on your system definition of an "item." Our definition is pretty strict, the key combination of Manufacturer and Manufacturer Part Number. An alternative would be to use a more generic definition of the form, fit and/or function of the item. As an exmample, in our system, letter-sized copier paper from Hammermill is a different Lawson Item Number than letter-sized copier paper from HP. The "generic" option would be to have an item for "letter-sized copier paper", and any manufacturer could then be collected into that item. The other consideration is product recall management. To my mind, if you start changing the IC11 or the PO13 to match what it being bought at that moment, you lose the trail back if a previous version of an item is being recalled.

So, where we differ from Michelle, is that replacement/substitute items require a completely different IC11/PO13 combination (assuming it is not the same item from a different source). If the substitute is not in the system when they first need it, they can order it as a Special (X-type) item, and then we can add it to the system for future use.

Where our system runs into to trouble is "private label items". We used to push as hard as we could to get the true manufacturer information behind the distributor's brand. That was NOT fun. In the last year or two, I finally relented and we simply put the distributor as the manufacturer (and I sigh everytime I see it).

From a manpower perspective, to cover 24 or so acute care hospitals and probably close to a thousand ambulatory sites (plus a smattering of ambulatory surgery centers), I have a team of 10 that report to me. My team focuses on the Master Data Management of Items (IC11, PO13), Locations (IC02, RQ01, IC81), People (RQ04 and PO04), and Things (system-wide agreements, primarily). There are then about 13 or so folks out in the field that deal with the operational aspects of these categories, IC12, PO15, local agreements, etc.

If you have further questions, I am happy to answer them,
Red

I posted an answer to your query in Infor Extreme Communities but I'll post here also in case some are not members.

We are a small health system compared to Sutter Health but I would not recommend opening up IC11/PO13 to more than very few. Before Lawson we had McKesson's Matkon and when I first started this job every buyer had full access to the item master. It was a mess. Inconsistent naming conventions. Multiple UOMs for the same UOM (i.e. CASE, CS and CA). Multiple entries of the same item. I would say that it's best practice to have as few cooks in the kitchen as possible. One of the first things I did was take access down to one buyer and myself as a backup. I started the item master scrubbing project about a year before Lawson implementation started. I think we were fairly clean when we went live and I wanted to keep it that way. Today we have a dedicated position (we call the Item Master Master) for item master management (along with myself and one other for back up but only for the rare emergent instances an item needs to be changed and the IMM is out of the office). This position is part of our Contract Management team and takes ownership of the item master data for Lawson and Cerner Surginet. New items are brought through one of many Value Analysis Teams which the IMM attends and then Contracts goes through their process before handing them off to the IMM. Our turn-around time for item master adds is about 48 hours post VAT.

Per Jon and Michelle, your item master (etc) will steadily deteriorate in terms of standardization and duplication if you open up access to IC11, PO13, etc. I do a lot of IC11 data scrubbing for hospitals. It's a painful, expensive process that could be avoided with better practices.

Your question suggests that either a) your team of 4 cannot turn around IC11 requests in a timely manner, or b) your buyers have a lot of rush orders, or both. Ideally your team could turn around a request in 1 - 2 hours, and perhaps you could use an RQC template and Process Flow (or some other online mechanism) to streamline the gathering of data.

I had also responded in Infor - I'm really curious how the execs picture the GPO tiers functioning - currently "it would hurt another contract more than it saves us money on this one item" is our number one reason for rejecting items. Openning up IC11/PO13 to the user level would mean anything that came in as a trial with a surgeon would end up in your price file. How would anything be standardized or leveraged for better tiers?