Abena UK Limited
Best management software available
Abena have been working with MSA for over 5 years as our main software developers.
Our main software package is a customised version of the Fleet Management Software, called Abena Active. We utilise this is in a specialist market for Home Delivery of medical products on behalf of NHS Trusts. This allows us to provide a complete management service for our NHS contracts from receiving patients’ requirements, through control of deliveries and finally to invoicing of products supplied to the NHS.
One of the strong points of the system is the flexible reporting system, which provides us with very detailed information on all our deliveries enabling us to have strong control on costs. The system is also linked to all our NHS customers allowing them access to the same information; giving them confidence that the information we provide them is correct.
The market we work in is very competitive and we feel strongly that the Abena Active system is the best management software available in this area, and gives us a strong competitive edge.
In addition to the Abena Active system, we have also worked with MSA in developing other solutions.
The first of these is a Stock Control system, utilising bar code scanning, which enables us to track all our stock from receipt into our warehouse to despatch to customers. We can at any time create a live lookup for any product and find out how much stock we have, and also its exact location in the warehouse. This has enabled us to make huge savings in negating overstocking, and also in man hours locating products.
Secondly, we are currently developing a PDA-based system to provide real-time tracking on all deliveries being made by our drivers. This information includes date and time of delivery, and a capture of the customer’s signature. This is then sent back to our Abena Active system which is then updated with the delivery information. This not only saves us time and effort in manually updating delivery information, but also provides fast and accurate confirmation of deliveries within minutes of a delivery being made.
Finally, we have just introduced an automated ordering system to allow our customers to order products outside of office hours using an IVR system.
As well as developing the software for Abena, MSA also provides full support for the software and the platform we run on. We utilise Citrix as a gateway to the Abena Active system, which was installed and supported by MSA. On the rare occasions we have had problems with the system, support response has always been fast and professional, even if we have had to call outside of normal office hours. We have been extremely happy with our relationship with MSA and have always found them a very professional and knowledgeable company to deal with. All the developers are happy to talk to us on specific issues, and work closely with us on developing solutions. We look forward to continuing our relationship with MSA as we expand and improve our IT solutions.