The effectiveness of inventory management practices: a case of prominent health institutions in Tanzania

The purpose of the study was to determine the effectiveness of inventory management practices in prominent Health Institutions in Tanzania. Specifically, it was to determine how order processing and warehousing management affect effective inventory management of drugs and also to identify the challenges encountered. It was conducted in three institutions; CCBRT, MNH and ORCI hospital. However, logistics management was not part of the study as informal observation showed that it was not faced with many problems. A descriptive design was used using both qualitative and quantitative approaches with stratified sampling to form a sample of 133 respondents. SPSS was used to analyse data, in which Chi-square tests was applied. Frequency tables and graphs were worked out using excel spread sheet. Findings revealed that users were not involved in specifications development, drugs are not received on time, often run out of stock, and vendor management is not implemented. The study also revealed that there is a lack of knowledge in procurement plan preparation among staff and it takes up to 15 days to receive drugs local sources while it takes 60 days to receive them from global sources. Some serious challenges were mentioned, like stock out, electricity problems, lack of storage space, poor planning, late delivery, failure to handle vendors and poor store layout. It is therefore recommended that; training, education and seminars should be provided to hospital operators; more emphasis on importing drugs; procurement knowledge and communications to customers and there should be maximum use of vendor Management strategy.