Supply Tracking
End-to-End Asset Lifecycle Management for Reusable Medical Equipment
Business context and structural constraints
ARC's reusable assets were operationally invisible once they left a facility. Shipping a cooler to a blood drive site meant trusting it would come back. Receiving a delivery meant manually counting and logging items against a paper manifest. Investigating a missing asset meant phone calls. The system needed to work in the field — on phones, tablets, and shared workstations without installed software — and required barcode scanning that worked reliably with device cameras, not dedicated hardware. It also needed to generate Excel-format audit reports on demand, because ARC's internal auditing processes are built around XLSX workflows that weren't going to change.
Browser-based barcode scanning at operational reliability
ZXing's browser decoder performs inconsistently across device cameras and lighting conditions without tuning. We implemented a resolution and frame-rate optimization layer within the Blazor WASM scanning interface that improved first-scan success rate from approximately 70% to over 95% in standard field conditions.
Query performance at ARC asset dataset scale
ARC's asset inventory spans thousands of items across dozens of facilities, with years of movement history per item. Entity Framework Core's generated queries were too slow for report generation and history-view use cases at this data volume. Key read paths were replaced with Dapper-based queries against optimized stored procedures, achieving the 40% retrieval speed improvement.
The Solution
Architectural approach and implementation
ARC's blood operations depend on a large fleet of reusable equipment: coolers, containers, specialized transport units, and collection apparatus that move continuously between facilities, blood drives, and distribution centers. Unlike disposable blood products — which have DIN-based tracking built into the regulatory framework — reusable assets historically operated on a mix of spreadsheets, manual logs, and institutional memory. Assets went missing, returned to wrong locations, or sat idle long past their scheduled return window. Each instance a cost. Each one an operational risk. Supply Tracking is an enterprise asset management platform built to give ARC complete, real-time visibility over the lifecycle of every tracked reusable item. The system handles registration, shipping, delivery confirmation, return receipt, and idle detection across multiple facilities — producing an unbroken chain of custody that integrates with ARC's Azure infrastructure and supports on-site use via a Blazor WASM Progressive Web App. Live since April 2024, the system has materially reduced asset loss and improved the speed with which field operations confirm equipment availability for upcoming blood drives.
How we turned the challenge into a solution
Each stage formalizes uncertainty into a concrete engineering outcome
Audit → Dependency Map
Inventory of 17+ disparate systems, data flow mapping, identification of critical integration points and performance bottlenecks
Map → Unified Architecture
Design of event-driven microservice architecture with multi-region data residency and zero-trust security model
Architecture → Working Prototype
Document management MVP with FIDO2 authentication, AES-256 encryption, and basic workflow engine for pilot group
Prototype → Scalable Platform
Horizontal scaling to 160+ countries, multi-tenant isolation, AI document classification with 95% accuracy
Platform → Analytics Core
MyInsights recommendation engine, predictive SLA alerts, personalized delivery of regulatory updates
Core → Continuous Compliance
Automated retention policies for 160+ jurisdictions, document integrity chain, one-click audit report generation
Full Shipping Lifecycle Workflow
Purpose-built modules cover every stage of the asset movement cycle: outbound registration with manifest generation, in-transit status tracking, delivery confirmation with barcode verification, return receipt, and facility reassignment. Each state transition is timestamped and user-attributed, maintaining an unbroken chain of custody across the asset's full lifecycle.
Camera-Based Barcode Scanning (PWA)
Using the ZXing browser decoder library within the Blazor WASM PWA, field staff scan asset barcodes directly with their device camera — no dedicated hardware, no app installation. The scanning interface provides immediate confirmation of scan success or failure before any state change is committed.
Idle Asset Detection
The system monitors time-since-last-scan for each tracked asset against expected transit and return windows. Assets that haven't been scanned within their scheduled movement window are flagged automatically — surfaced to facility managers as items requiring active follow-up before they become confirmed losses.
Audit & Reporting Engine
On-demand generation of full asset history reports — by item, by facility, by time period, or by movement type — exported to XLSX via OpenXML. Reports include every state transition, every user action, and every timestamp in the chain of custody. Designed to satisfy ARC's internal audit requirements without additional data processing steps.
Corporate SSO & Role-Based Access
Integrated with ARC's enterprise SSO for authentication. Role-based access controls determine which facilities and asset categories each user can view or modify — ensuring regional staff see only their operational scope while central operations teams maintain cross-facility visibility.
The Impact
Quantitative results demonstrating the real impact of implementation on operational efficiency, infrastructure reliability, and platform scalability
Asset tracking accuracy improved by 45% — barcode-confirmed chain of custody replaces manual manifest reconciliation
Data retrieval speed increased by 40% — Dapper queries and stored procedures eliminate ORM overhead on large asset history datasets
Asset loss reduced by 35% — idle detection surfaces equipment that hasn't moved within expected timeframes before loss is confirmed
Field staff operate fully from PWA — no device app installation required for on-site barcode scanning and status updates
Full audit reports generated on demand in XLSX format, compatible with ARC's internal audit workflows
Technology Stack
Built with proven enterprise-grade technologies
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