Few areas of hospital operations are as cost intensive or more tedious than inventory management.  Many organizations are suffering significant losses, and in many cases lack the necessary data collection procedures and management controls to even effectively document the adverse financial impact of their activity.  Many institutions can only guess at the daily status of their supplies, or at the extent of their losses.

Using labor saving automation, you can obtain effective control of your supplies with less effort than you would expect.  Ariel specializes in economical automated data collection and management tools, and systems that will allow you to improve your internal operations and to finally take management control of your inventory. 

RIC32 is our sixth generation hospital inventory management system, in use daily for over a decade.  Completely modular in design, this rich and robust object-based system can be configured in many ways to meet the varying needs of individual institutions. 

RIC32 provides highly automated and labor efficient inventory control.  Now you can achieve more with fewer labor hours, improved accuracy, and unprecedented reporting.

RIC32 operates on personal computers and personal computer networks.  It is engineered to provide exceptional speed and reliability, even under periods of heavy use. Designed for rapid deployment and fast implementation so you can be up and running as quickly as possible, RIC32 operates on standard windows based personal computers. RIC32 runs on a standard PC/Server configuration.  The PC is used to manage all communications, remote inventory profiles, routes, and route groupings. It also is used to support the portable data acquisition devices, or PDADs, that are used to collect data at the remote inventory locations. RIC32 can also easily interface directly with your Geac/Infor, PeopleSoft, Lawson, SAP or similar system.

Purchasing Inventory Module

This module maintains inventory levels and automates replenishment for your central inventory.  It automatically calculates, reorders and produces paper or electronic reorders to your vendors.  It includes a special bar coded receiving function that allows you to receive orders in just a few seconds.  A unique price matching sub module can be used to validate vendor invoice pricing and to correct discrepancies.  Periodic cycle counting based on activity, value, or area is supported.  This module can also be linked to your institution's existing purchasing system.

Full Route Management Features 

RIC32 includes sophisticated, but easy to use, route management tools so you can create an unlimited number of routes for each PDAD. Routes are fully user-defined and may be created, grouped and named as necessary. You can have different routes for different days of the week, for special inventories, by employee or cost centers or by any other grouping you need. PDADs are easily resynchronized at the PC to reflect new or updated routes.  

Directed Counting and Bar Coding 

Counts can be entered either by scanning bar codes or by using the directed counting feature.  The Directed Counting PDAD program guides the user through the entire count process, prompting for each item automatically in the most convenient order for performing the counts. The Directed Count program allows the user to set up the order of items at each remote inventory location.  Other special PDAD features make it easy to adjust values and to validate entries against your par values. 

RIC32 can print all of the bar codes you need directly using your laser printer and standard label stock. RIC32 includes a built-in bar code generator that produces high quality bar codes to identify Users, Cost Centers, Inventory Areas, and Items including shelf and bin labels. RIC32 also fully supports industry standard bar codes so you can use bar codes supplied by manufacturers or distributors, if you prefer. 

Automated Inventory Analysis 

RIC32 identifies items where ongoing usage suggests modifying inventory levels. Our special sophisticated algorithm and concise report allows you to zero in on these items and make the necessary adjustments, with virtually no effort!

Patient Charge Capture Module

This module is available in both fully electronic and bar coded piggyback label versions.  It allows you to collect patient charges at point of use, for transmission to your hospital billing system.  Charge documents, if used, can be processed automatically with sheet fed scanners that can read bar codes or hand-printed characters.  It also reconciles issues with charges to identify lost charges.  A Patient Charge Recovery function produces bar coded documents to assist in recovering missed charges.

PDAD Operations

Use RIC32 For Warehouse Inventory Counting

Whether you're cycle counting or performing your annual inventory, RIC32 makes it a breeze! Use the PDAD to collect inventory counts by simply scanning each item and entering the on-hand quantity. Several people can count simultaneously using multiple PDADs if desired. Upload the collected data and RIC32 performs the comparison between the computer system inventory count and the physical count instantly. RIC32 highlights any items with a discrepancy to make it easy to review and correct as required.

RIC32 Supports Bar Coded Issues 

RIC32 allows you to perform direct issues from your warehouse or stockroom to your cost centers. You can issue right at the RIC32 PC, or remotely using the PDAD. Just scan the cost center, item and quantity issued and you're done! 

New RIC32 Transfer Function 

Now use RIC32 to record transfers between Cost Center areas. Just scan the Cost Center sending the transfer, the Cost Center receiving the transfer, the item and the quantity, and you're done!  

Reporting 

RIC32 includes over 100 standard report combinations. It includes convenient, flexible reporting features with built-in filtering and sorting options, report generation for any date range, and allows you to output to the screen, printer, or file.