Clearer Visibility into the Supply Chain within Healthcare
Background
OneBlood is a blood donation center specifically servicing Tampa Bay, Central Florida, and part of the South and Southeast United States. Their mission is to enhance the health and well-being of others through their work with blood and stem cell products and by facilitating scientific research.
Business Need
OneBlood needed better visibility into their supply chain so that their Biologics team could keep a pulse on daily manufacturing needs and Marketing could stay aware of their most valuable marketing opportunities.
Historically, OneBlood struggled with disparate analyses and multiple sources of truth in terms of reporting. Their Data Science team identified the need for a near real-time Supply Chain Management system, in the form of a suite of Tableau dashboards, most of which did not previously exist.
The Challenge
The biggest challenge in creating this Supply Chain Management solution in Tableau was that there was not a blueprint or any existing solution that hit the mark for their specific needs. While OneBlood had a good grasp of their data, it was stored across many SQL tables in their data warehouse. OneBlood needed help determining how to take data and structure it ideally for use within Tableau for their desired reporting purposes. DataBrains provided the necessary guidance to the OneBlood Database admin, which allowed him to curate the necessary data sources, allowing DataBrains to focus on developing a system of dashboards from the ground up.
When DataBrains started working with OneBlood, they were fairly early in their Tableau journey. Not many analysts had experience with Tableau and they lacked any official training. OneBlood worked with DataBrains to grow their analytical maturity and data-driven culture. Additionally, they used DataBrains to assist with migrating from Tableau Online to Tableau Server, after they found limitations with using Tableau Bridge.
The Solution
Once this collaborative process was complete, the finished result was a set of dashboards for each of their 3 most critical products (O-Positive RBC, O-Negative RBC, and Platelets) which shine the light on key metrics over time, supply chain shortcomings, and constant identification of high-value opportunity donors. This solution was packaged up and displayed on the Data Science Team’s Sharepoint Site.
In addition to the dashboard development, DataBrains was an integral part in advancing the Tableau acumen of OneBlood through the following additional activities:
1. Tableau Training: Tableau Fundamentals training and support to the Data Science Team members. Through these training sessions, DataBrains was able to successfully empower the OneBlood Data Science team to be heavily involved in the creation of the Supply Chain dashboards and many more critical business reports.
2. End-User Success Criteria: Meetings with key departmental leaders to gather requirements and to review and demonstrate the use and functionality of each dashboard.
3. Tableau Server: Completed the migration from Tableau Online to Tableau Server. DataBrains provided a full audit of content on the Tableau Online site prior to migration and confirmed which content should and should not move to Tableau Server. This process provided insight into what content OneBlood users were actually using and what was stale.
