Medical device companies have solved warehouse inventory. ERPs track what’s on the shelf. WMS platforms know what’s been picked, packed, and shipped. The problem starts the moment inventory walks out the door.

Once a kit, implant, or instrument set reaches the field, whether it's consigned at a hospital, sitting in a rep's trunk, loaned for a case, or transferred between reps, most companies lose visibility entirely.

Many have tried to fix these problems. Every previous fix asked field reps to do more work. More forms, more scanning, more logging into systems that weren't built for them. The ground reality is simple: if tracking inventory is harder than not tracking it, it won't get tracked. Instead, make the right thing the easy thing.

The gap

Consignment inventory lives between the manufacturer’s ERP and the hospital’s system — neither side has full visibility. Your ERP shows what was shipped, not what’s been used or what’s expired.

Manufacturers carry an average of 150 days of inventory in the field. For a company with $10M in field inventory, $100K–$400K per year disappears to shrinkage alone.[1]

How it works when it’s solved

The rep emails or texts a photo of the charge sheet — the same thing they’re already doing. AI extracts the products, lot numbers, and quantities. Inventory adjusts automatically. Billing kicks off. Replenishment triggers.

The rep’s workflow didn’t change. But now a single event updates every downstream system instead of starting a 5-person email chain. Consignment becomes a real-time dashboard — usage, replenishment status, and revenue recognition all visible at a glance.

Sales reps carry inventory in their car — literally in their trunk or a rolling case. They bring product to cases, use what’s needed, and return what’s left. It’s the most flexible and least visible inventory model in medical devices.

The gap

Every vehicle is a mini-warehouse with no inventory system. You can buy a field app, but if it requires reps to manually enter every item they receive and every item they use, adoption dies within weeks. The system has to build inventory for them.

20 reps each carrying $50K–$200K in trunk stock = $1M–$4M in unmanaged inventory. Stock expires in trunks because nobody catches it until the next physical count.[3]

How it works when it’s solved

Start with what happens without the rep doing anything: when the 3PL ships inventory, they CC the system on their advance shipping notice. The system ingests the ASN, extracts lot numbers and quantities, and builds the rep’s trunk stock automatically. No manual entry. No scanning. The rep opens the mobile app and sees exactly what’s in their trunk — because the system built it from the shipping data.

A manufacturer sends a kit of instruments and implants to a hospital for a specific case. The kit ships out, the surgeon uses what’s needed, and the kit ships back with (hopefully) everything accounted for. A single kit might contain 30–50 individual items across implants, instruments, and disposables — each with its own lot number, expiration date, and unit cost.

The gap

A discrepant return doesn’t just cost you the missing item. It blocks the kit from the next case until reconciled, adds investigation hours, and creates sterility risk.

How it works when it’s solved

The rep is already opening and closing the kit. You’re not adding a step — you’re digitizing one that exists. Snap a photo before the case, snap a photo after. The system compares the two, flags discrepancies in real time, and creates an auditable record before the kit ships back. Three days of reconciliation becomes three minutes.

The incentive is built in: the rep can’t generate a return shipping label until they’ve confirmed what’s in the kit. That’s not a mandate — it’s a workflow that makes verification the path of least resistance.

One rep needs a product or kit that another rep has. Instead of ordering from the warehouse (which takes days), they arrange a lateral transfer — meet in a parking lot, drop it at a front desk, ship it directly to each other. It’s fast, practical, and completely invisible to most systems.

The gap

An Operations VP at a mid-size orthopedic manufacturer estimated that 10–15% of their kits don’t come from the distribution center — they come from other reps via field transfers. And 35–40% of kits that go through field transfers come back with discrepancies.

ERPs track warehouse-to-customer. Field systems track rep-to-case. But rep-to-rep? That’s a text message and a handshake. The inventory record doesn’t update until someone manually corrects it weeks later.

How it works when it’s solved

A lightweight transfer from their phone — Rep A initiates, Rep B confirms receipt, inventory updates in real time. The design principle: make the compliant path the convenient one.

Don’t add steps. Digitize the ones that already exist.

A single case can involve consigned product, trunk stock, a loaner kit, and a field transfer — all in the same day. The solution isn’t a bigger ops team. It’s a system that captures every transaction at the source and structures it automatically.

What that looks like in practice

Where a 10-person ops team actually spends their time

The goal is simple: make it easier to do the right thing than the wrong thing — so the operations team can manage the business instead of managing spreadsheets.

You don’t need a consultant or an audit. Ask your operations team five questions:

If you can’t answer the first four with confidence, or if the answer to the fifth is “more than zero,” the field inventory problem is costing you real money — and it gets more expensive with every rep, every product line, and every new customer you add. The fix isn’t more discipline. It’s better tooling that makes the right workflow the easiest one.