Boston Scientific
"It is vendor agnostic, customer and patient focused. A hospital will have the ability to manage their own inventory and consigned inventory from any vendor with shared resources and infrastructure."Allison Fox, Head of Commercial Operations, Australia & New Zealand
Pentalym is different to any other prospective RFID system offered in the market.
Case Study: Enhancing Inbound Visibility and Inventory Accuracy for Boston Scientific using Pentalym’s RFID Platform
Client: Boston Scientific
Industry: Medical Devices
Location: Australia (DHL Distribution Centres and customer sites)
Challenge
Boston Scientific needed greater visibility and control over high-value, serialized medical products shipped via air freight into Australia. Manual processes and barcode-only tracking limited real-time insight into the location of goods from point of origin through to distribution centres (DCs) and customer facilities.
Key challenges included:
Lack of real-time tracking of inbound shipments, Difficulty in managing serialized inventory at pallet, box, and individual item levels
Manual cycle counting processes within DHL’s Distribution Centre. Fragmented data between freight forwarders (Expeditors), DC operations (DHL), and internal systems
Solution
Pentalym partnered with Boston Scientific to implement a comprehensive RFID-based inbound tracking and inventory management system. The solution included:
RFID Tagging Pre-Arrival: smartTags applied to pallets and box-level items before arrival in Australia, linked to GTINs and serialized license plates.
Advanced Shipment Notification (ASN) Integration: Each tagged item was registered in advance and connected to inbound shipment data via Expeditors.
RFID Tracking Across the Supply Chain: Items were tracked from air freight arrival through to receipt at Australian DHL Distribution Centres, with automated check-in via RFID readers.
License Plate Association: smartTags were encoded with EPCs and linked to product GTINs for granular traceability at box and item levels.
Facility and Field Visibility: Real-time locating of serialized, barcoded products stored across DCs and hospital customer sites.
RFID-Driven Cycle Counting: Enhanced inventory accuracy within DHL through RFID-enabled cycle counting, reducing manual effort and errors.
Outcome
Real-time visibility of inbound air-freighted goods, improving receiving accuracy and response time
Seamless inventory reconciliation via RFID, cutting cycle count times and improving stock accuracy within the DC
End-to-end traceability from pallet to patient-ready item, supporting compliance and reducing shrinkage
Improved coordination between freight forwarder, DHL operations, and Boston Scientific supply chain
Technologies Used
Pentalym RFID SmartTag Platform
EPC Global-compliant RFID Tags
Integration with ASN systems and GTIN databases
Middleware and cloud-based tracking dashboard
