Ryder System, Inc. and BJC Health System, based in St. Louis, Missouri, secure the prestigious SMI Tom Hughes Collaboration Award for their transformative work in reshaping the healthcare supply chain to improve patient care and redefine product delivery. Presented annually by SMI, a non-profit community of healthcare providers and industry partners, the award honors innovative collaborations that drive meaningful change in healthcare logistics.
“With BJC’s visionary leadership and Ryder’s operational expertise, this collaboration exemplifies the spirit of this award – healthcare supply chain’s absolute best models of healthcare supply chain collaborators working together to deliver patient-centric healthcare in a time of transformative change,” says Jane Pleasants, SMI President.
In 2019, BJC’s East Region identified inefficiencies in the traditional healthcare supply chain model that pulled clinicians away from patient care. Seeking a third-party logistics provider (3PL) to help build a patient-centric model, BJC selected Ryder to help reshape its supply chain distribution model.
“To break industry norms of the past 20 years, we looked for innovation that could bring best practices from more mature supply chains, like automotive and high tech,” says BJC Senior Vice President and Chief Supply Chain Officer Tom Harvieux. “In December 2020, we embarked on our transformational journey, and by that time, we were in the throes of a pandemic that reinforced the critical need for speed, agility, and resiliency.”
Based on BJC’s vision, Ryder led the design and launch of a 416,000-square-foot Consolidated Services Center (CSC), capable of streamlining all supplier channels and scaling for future growth. With the implementation of automation, the CSC continuously feeds critical care supplies to the BJC East Region’s 14 hospitals, 3,300 beds, and 4,600 physicians 24/7. Less than one year after opening, the CSC had already achieved servicing levels at 87% or 13,000 daily lines of medical supplies flowing through the channel.
Ryder also engineered highly sequenced deliveries, prioritizing the most critical supplies for immediate access at hospital loading docks.
An advanced warehouse management system and Ryder’s proprietary RyderShareTM platform provide inventory control, demand planning, and real-time visibility and collaborative problem-solving – ensuring uninterrupted care, even during crises like the 2024 Hurricane Helene IV fluid shortage that impacted the vast majority of hospitals nationwide.
The collaboration also reduced BJC’s capital outlay. And, with direct sourcing capabilities, BJC not only gained full inventory control, but cost transparency.
Key Results:
- Hospital order fulfillment rates rose from 90% to more than 99%
- On-time, in-full rates jumped from 27% to 75%
- Order processing costs dropped by 80%
- Nursing unit service levels improved to more than 98.5%
- Inventory-on-hand reduced by 25 days for improved cost, storage management
- 100% inventory control with real-time, end-to-end visibility
“It’s extraordinary – you can’t see where one team ends and the other begins,” says Ryder SVP of Supply Chain Solutions Cherie Brinkerhoff. “From frontline associates to executive leadership, everyone shares in BJC’s mission to improve patient care and save lives. There are patients at the end of this supply chain; they could be our friends, our families, our neighbors. That’s why we show up every day with purpose.”
