Location/Region: Panama City, PAN
Industry: Medical device distribution
Apps implemented: Inventory, Accounting, CRM, Sales, and Planning.
Software
Replaced: BC Cloud and Excel
Size of the company: 30
Hosting type: Odoo Online
Palmsa, a medical supply company specializing in orthopedic and trauma implants in Panama, found in Odoo the ideal tool to transform its operations and simplify the management of more than 4,000 items in its inventory. With a highly specialized team of biomedical engineers, orthopedists, and instrument technicians, the company now relies on an efficient, accessible, and robust system that has allowed it to dramatically improve its internal control.
Founded in 2008 by Dr Lionel Jaén, a renowned Panamanian orthopedist, Palmsa was created with the vision of offering the local market high-quality medical equipment designed from a surgeon’s perspective. It began as a small company in which its founder managed everything from importation to operating room instrumentation. Over time, the company grew and consolidated a multidisciplinary team of between 25 and 30 collaborators, including specialists with postgraduate degrees in different areas of healthcare.
Today, Palmsa distributes trauma and orthopaedics implants from commercial manufacturers in the United States, Europe, and Turkey, with a strong specialisation in small-bone surgeries, including those involving the hands and feet. Over the past five years, the company has expanded its portfolio to include knee and hip prostheses, as well as a range of medical equipment, including drills, X-ray machines, tourniquets, and dental equipment.
"We have always tried to offer special, high-quality equipment that truly makes a difference in the operating room."
The Challenges before finding Odoo
Before implementing Odoo, Palmsa worked with rudimentary solutions that limited the efficiency of its operations. They relied on a combination of Excel and a local system called BC Cloud, which handled basic sales, inventory, and accounting functions but was difficult to use and lacked technical support.
This situation led to slow, poorly optimized processes, making inventory management particularly challenging.
"The system we used was always very rudimentary. It wasn’t optimized at all, and it was difficult for staff to use."
How Odoo transformed the operation
The search for a more robust solution led Palmsa to Odoo. Rafael Barragán researched different options on the market and found that hospitals and clinics in Panama were already using it successfully. This motivated the decision to adopt it as the main platform to modernize operations.
The impact was immediate. The Inventory application became the most widely used within the company, addressing the biggest challenge: managing more than 3,500 to 4,000 different items, from tiny screws to complete prostheses.
Intuitive, easy-to-use interface: Odoo’s simplicity reduced the learning curve and allowed staff to quickly find the information they needed, removing the obstacles posed by previous systems.
Multi-warehouse management: Palmsa can now create virtual warehouses and digitally map its consignment processes, achieving much more precise control over the movement of medical equipment between hospitals and clinics.
Flexible inventory visualization: The ability to group and view products in different formats (lists, cards, custom groupings) has made it easier to organize and edit items in real time.
Support and guidance: Training sessions provided by the Odoo team were key in helping staff quickly understand the most relevant features. “The support was quite accessible. They helped me understand the system much better, even in areas that were not my specialty,” Rafael commented.
"Processes that used to take hours now take less than an hour or even just minutes. Time efficiency has been the biggest gain.”
Palmsa’s Path to Continued Growth
Palmsa continues on its path of expansion. Although it considers itself a relatively small company, it competes head-to-head with larger companies in Panama. In the short term, the plan is to continue growing exponentially, expanding its portfolio into new areas such as dentistry and radiology, with the addition of X-ray equipment specialized in orthopedics.
At the same time, the company aims to extend the use of Odoo across all its operations. Beyond inventory control, its goal is to fully integrate CRM, Sales, Accounting, and the Calendar to schedule surgeries from a single system. This vision seeks to simplify the work of all collaborators while maintaining the high quality of service that sets them apart.
The Palmsa case demonstrates how a company in the medical sector can optimize its processes and gain efficiency with Odoo. The platform has been a strategic ally in managing the complexity of its inventory and paving the way for a more agile, modern operation. For healthcare companies and businesses facing complex logistical and administrative demands, Odoo is a key enabler for sustainable growth and market differentiation.
