P
lanning Success story
Demand Solutions gives Trinity Biotech a clean bill of health
T
rinity Biotech, a global company based in Ireland, has been developing and selling medical testing kits and supplies since 1992 – gradually expanding its operations to encompass sales in 80 countries, both directly and through distributors. If you want to check for Legionnaire’s Disease (which affects 18,000 people a year in the US and 10,000 in Europe) or HIV, Trinity Biotech has diagnostic kits that use its proprietary technology to detect illness within minutes.
A public company listed on NASDAQ, Trinity Biotech makes test kits that are used in the clinical laboratory and point-of-care segments of the diagnostic market to detect infectious diseases, sexually transmitted diseases, blood coagulation and autoimmune disorders. The company also sells raw materials to the life sciences industry.
Growth
With annual sales of $126 million, the company has been growing both organically and through acquisition. It has manufacturing plants in Ireland and the US, and sells in more than 80 countries through a combination of direct sales in the US, UK, France and Germany, which account for 60 per cent of the world’s
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MANUFACTURING &LOGISTICS
IT March 2011
www.logisticsit.com “
Before we installed Demand Solutions, the distribution centres just placed a purchase order and if the stock was available they got it. Now we have a lot more visibility and control and we manufacture based on their sales forecasts, net of local inventory.”
– Mark Gregory, Trinity Biotech.
diagnostics market and through distributors in the rest of the world. The company says its market is growing because of an aging population and increasing demand for test kits that can deliver results promptly in a clinical environment.
Since the active ingredients in many diagnostic test kits do not last more than a year, obsolescence is a key issue in its inventory management. In addition, demand for its kits can vary by season for flu test kits in
the Northern and Southern Hemispheres and for illnesses that crop up in summer, such as Lyme disease. The company implemented Demand Solutions in 2006 in Ireland, UK, and US major markets.
ROI targets exceeded
The results have been dramatic. “In the first 3 months of operation we
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