Case Study

The Situation

SomnoMed is a world-leader in developing medical devices that treat obstructive sleep apnea, keeping a patients’ airway continually open while they sleep. SomnoMed’s devices are in use by over 45,000 Australians and 350,000 people worldwide.

Their product, the SomnoDent®, is a device custom-made for patient comfort and is available from specialist dentists. This range offered to follow their ‘Continuous Open Airway Therapy’ brand, COAT™.

While working with Brennan, the first part of the supply chain process for the SomnoDent® COAT device was labour-intensive. Dentists were required to create 3D moulds, which were converted digitally by local SomnoMed designers and then sent to an overseas production facility. This process meant that patients were often waiting a considerable time for their devices.

From an operational perspective, SomnoMed was also experiencing some typical technology challenges. They were relying upon an outdated on-premise infrastructure, which often failed. The reliance on the ageing infrastructure did not allow them to take full advantage of other digitisation opportunities. Prevented from fast-tracking cumbersome elements of their supply chain, staff were also continually frustrated by their underperforming technology, which affected employee morale and retention.

The Challenge

1. Poor system performance

The greatest challenge for SomnoMed was the inferior quality of its dated, on-premise infrastructure. For some time, they had been experiencing system outages and downtime. This downtime was impeding the overall efficiency and productivity of the business. Additionally, their organisational data transfer was slow and cumbersome. Even just reliably sending and receiving emails, and uploading and downloading files, was a challenge.

2. Ineffective collaboration and communication

As all of SomnoMed’s infrastructure was on-premise rather than in the cloud, there was also little opportunity for staff to work remotely. Information-sharing between its 40 global hubs, and with the Manilla production facility, was also limited.

3. Lack of digitisation across the supply chain

Most importantly, on top of restricting day-to-day communication and collaboration, their aging technology prevented the digitisation of its entire supply chain.

Like many of their global competitors, SomnoMed knew there was an enormous opportunity to streamline their supply chain. By enabling dentists to send computer-generated images of a patient’s teeth and bite registration straight to SomnoMed’s hubs, as opposed to creating a 3D mould which then needed to be quality checked, and re-created.

With Brennan’s help, SomnoMed reduced the time taken to produce an individual SomnoDent® COAT device by three to four days.

The Solution

SomnoMed engaged Brennan to scope, design, and implement a completely new, cloud-based digital infrastructure; a process that took around four months from start to finish.

As a priority, Brennan recommended that SomnoMed migrate their email to Microsoft Office 365. This decision delivered immediate communication efficiencies and the speed with which employees could share information.

Brennan then moved SomnoMed’s entire infrastructure across to a cloud-based Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solution, which has provided much-improved stability and reliability. The solution means Brennan is now responsible, as a managed service provider, for coordinating all of SomnoMed’s email, infrastructure, network connectivity, security and disaster recovery. Brennan also provides day-to-day IT support for SomnoMed’s employees via an online portal or phone, and local support is also provided internally by SomnoMed’s hubs.

SomTrack is a bespoke, proprietary core business app hosted in the Brennan-managed IaaS environment, and all orders are placed and managed via this application.

Brennan also manages all of SomnoMed’s data links, providing a secure data network that connects SomnoMed’s various hubs and end-users to the cloud, meaning that people and offices enjoy secure and robust network connections.

By outsourcing their technology to an expert provider, SomnoMed’s employees are now free to focus on innovating their supply chain and improving their products, rather than worrying about their technology. Digitising the process for SomnoDent® COAT production, and managing the entire process via the SomTrack app, the business has saved enormous amounts of time, removed duplication, and ensure greater precision with their modeling.

SomnoMed also now uses Skype for Business to collaborate and share screens, to quickly get answers to questions and deliver superior devices for patients.