It’s essential for public sector organizations to make the most of their resources. As we heard in the many intriguing and informative sessions at this year’s SAPPHIRE NOW conference, a streamlined, structured plan is critical to ensuring these organizations’ mandates are fulfilled and citizens’ lives are improved.
Here are some highlights from those sessions, which reveal how SAP is helping to increase the efficiency, accountability, and visibility of critical public health processes.
Army Strong with SAP
“You cannot expect a commander to look at a little thing spinning on the screen.” Amith Nikam, principal solution architect of the National U.S. Army Coordination Program, made this insightful observation. Nikam joined fellow solution architect Chayan Mukherjee in the session “U.S. Army Builds on SAP SCM with an Adoption Path for SAP HANA”[link] to describe how the U.S. Army made one of the largest deployments of SAP Supply Chain Management application globally. As Nikam explained, implementing in-memory intelligence into the Army’s business operations was essential to achieve the level of performance required. “None of this is just about speed,” said Nikam. “Speed is a derived benefit. What we are trying to achieve is agility, business process improvement, and user empowerment. Get the users access to their data faster so they can perform decisions.”
Deploying the Logistics Modernization Program powered by SAP HANA, the Army has been able to accomplish an unprecedented level of integration between the foxhole and the industrial base, reduce lead times, eliminate redundancies, and achieve cost savings that put more resources toward emerging frontline needs.
“We all know SAP HANA is a game-changer,” said Nikam. Because of it, “we are there as enablers for [the Army] to get to its data. That’s the bottom line.”
Food to Fork
From the frontlines to the farm, SAP is helping government agencies fulfill their missions. As Sean Britto, Web-based supply chain management (WBSCM) project manager for the USDA, noted in his session, “Ramp Up Efficiency by Reinventing Web-Based Supply Chain Management,”[link] solutions from SAP are helping the agency enable meal distribution to nearly 32 million children each day. The program delivery system for farm food commodities to feed the needy, schoolchildren, elderly, and other people in need in the United States and abroad, WBSCM has moved approximately 24 billion pounds of farm food commodity at an approximate cost of $9 billion since its implementation three years ago. The system supports over 8,300 registered users – customers and partners who actually go in and use the software from SAP to create and monitor their food commodity requests, deliveries, and inventories.
“The goal is to get these products out of the producers’ hands and into the recipients’ hands as fast as possible,” said Britto. With SAP’s help, that goal is being achieved. In 2013, the USDA delivered 8.4 billion pounds of food to those in need at a cost of $2.9 billion and achieved a 245% return on its investment.
Mission Critical
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) operates the largest and most complex vaccine supply chain in the United States.
Its VTrckS system, an end-to-end integrated solution built with SAP’s support, connects 64 immunization programs and 44,000 provider sites and provides the monitoring
and replenishment of CDC’s vaccine inventory.
“VTrckS is a mission-critical system for us,” said Anjella Johnson-Hooker of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and
Respiratory Diseases, in the session, “Improve Public Health and Efficiency by Automating Core Processes.”[link] Not only does the CDC provide vaccinations
when there is a national outbreak, but it also provides immunizations to 50% of the nation’s children through its Vaccines for Children program. That means more
than 100 million doses are given annually at a value of over $4 billion. VTrckS gives the CDC the near-real-time visibility into the complete lifecycle for vaccine management, ensuring a full stock of supplies is on hand at all times. “This truly moved the dial on the evolution of how we handle and manage and provide oversight of the national public sector vaccine supply chain,” said Johnson-Hooker.
The U.S. Army, CDC, and USDA are all public entities working to improve the lives of citizens and all run on SAP.
To see replays of all the public sector sessions from SAPPHIRE NOW, click here 
