What is an electronic LMIS?
Most Logistics Management Information Systems (LMIS) in low-income countries are paper-based systems that require manual data collection at almost every point in the supply chain. An electronic LMIS automates this process, reducing manual data entry and hand calculations. The result is more complete, accurate and timely data for decision-making— essential to reducing stockouts, managing waste and losses, and operating an effective and efficient supply chain.
What is OpenLMIS?
OpenLMIS is a state-of-the-art, web-enabled, enterprise class electronic LMIS solution that facilitates the requisition and resupply process in low-resource settings for health commodities. OpenLMIS automates the LMIS system throughout the supply chain and supports interoperability through Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), which allow implementers to send and receive data between Health Management Information System (HMIS) visualization software, mobile data collection platforms, and warehouse ERP systems. OpenLMIS supports the Supply Chain Operations Reference Model (SCOR), facilitating users to plan, source, manage, and deliver stocked products to clients.
The OpenLMIS Version 3 series is the current release series of the OpenLMIS software.
This version provides better support for customization and extensions than previous versions through a service-based API-driven modular software architecture. This approach enables multiple OpenLMIS implementations in different countries while still sharing a single, global open source code base. Implementers are able to choose the services that fit their unique requirements, while contributing newly developed services back to the OpenLMIS community.
Shared Investment, Shared Benefit
OpenLMIS was designed by a community of countries and international stakeholders who believe in working together to solve common challenges. Countries and donors pooled resources to create a non-proprietary product built on shared user requirements across countries. The end result is a more flexible and powerful information system than what any one country or organization could create individually. As an open source software, the OpenLMIS software is available free of charge, and enhancements made by individual countries are contributed back to the community for others to use.
Shared Investment
With OpenLMIS, users don’t have to pay to build a solution from the ground up, or reinvent one that already exists. The modular architecture and collective user requirements of OpenLMIS ensure that development in one country or program can be shared globally, increasing the return on investment for donors and users alike.
Shared Benefit
Enhancements and customizations made by individual countries can be contributed back to the OpenLMIS core codebase for others to access and use. Countries and implementing partners alike can share open source software tools and methodologies in order to develop and deploy their electronic LMIS.
No Licensing Fees
Because OpenLMIS is open source, there are no licensing fees typically associated with proprietary software development and maintenance. The software is freely available to download and build from.
The Community
OpenLMIS benefits from a community of highly skilled partners working toward a shared goal of supporting and extending the reach of OpenLMIS globally. This community was created to establish a shared repository of valuable information and tools for technical agencies, NGOs, countries, donors and system developers. Creating a common framework for sharing supply chain resources for both creating LMIS solutions and encouraging integrations of LMIS solutions with other health information system domains. The OpenLMIS Community provides ongoing direction to product development, support to existing implementations, ensuring the software is up-to-date and meets the real needs of users in the field.
- Country-Driven. OpenLMIS is based on detailed requirements developed by multiple ministries of health.
- Open Source. Non-proprietary, open-source solutions empower countries to own, customize, extend and manage their eLMIS, providing shared investment, shared learning and reduced up front development costs.
- Support Community. The only open-source eLMIS solution supported by a diverse group of supply chain, information technology, software engineering and public health experts—all contributing to ongoing development and sustainability across multiple countries.
- Efficient. Increased supply chain visibility to better track wastage, leakage, reporting.
- Interoperable. Developed to interface with other health information systems to enable comprehensive visibility.
- Flexible. Adaptable to a country’s specific supply chain needs—data collection forms, approval hierarchies, and the supply chain model can be easily configured for each program.
- Designed for Low-Infrastructure. Specifically designed to facilitate data collection in low-infrastructure environments from point-of-origin to the point-of-delivery, enabling timely review, aggregation, analysis, and forecasting.
- Easy to Use. Save time training users with straight-forward user interface.
You can help to contribute to OpenLMIS!
Users
File and flag issues in the OpenLMIS JIRA
Developers
Join us on our Slack channel and get involved! Email to get a Slack invite!