Let’s accept it: Be it large enterprises or small-to-mid-sized enterprises, the manufacturing segment is the backbone of the pharma industry. The manufacturing SMEs are finding it difficult to yield quality products amidst healthcare reforms, changing customer’s needs, accurate administration requirements, rising competition, and evolving market trends.
These business challenges have created a dire need of streamlining processes, optimizing operations, and maximizing efficiency to deliver the quality product at a reduced cost. Going conventionally, it’s beyond the bounds of possibility. That’s where pharma ERP comes into the picture as a powerful solution.
However, many SMEs still shed misconceptions on employing ERP software by considering they are “too small.” But, they are living in the biggest myth because the process they follow and operations they perform are not different than large manufacturing enterprises. Moreover, they need advanced technology solutions to outgrow, outperform, and outdo the competition.
Still, not convinced?
Here, a couple of reasons are illustrated that reveals why SMEs cannot afford to ignore pharma ERP adoption:
Comply with regulatory requirements
The pharma is one of the highly regulated industries where dozens of quality and regulatory compliances must be abiding by the manufacturers. Traditionally, ensuring compliance with FDA 21 CFR, cGMP, and others eat up a lot of time, and sometimes, human errors are no exception that results in heavy penalties.
It can be prevented with an ERP solution that comprises workflows, audit trails, approval controls, quality assurance, and quality control capabilities, and other features, which makes compliance a breeze for the manufacturers.
Seamless material and inventory management
The material wastage at various levels of inventory negatively impacts business profitability. The pharma manufacturers aiming to reduce the cost require ERP software that helps in controlling material wastage and monitoring inventory levels.
The ERP determines the material required for the production, sets goals, makes targets for procurement and replenishment, and displays material management which helps in inventory level optimisation that ultimately reduces the wastage to an extent. Besides, the inventory management balances reconciliation, FEFO (First Expiry First Out) approach, and inventory status reports generation regularly which aids in ensuring quality and avoiding the risks of selling expired drugs.
Formulation management
The drug formula is a great asset to the pharma manufacturing SMEs, that’s if stolen, mismanaged, or lost, it becomes disastrous.
Understanding the security and tracking needs of formula management, the ERP software allows the manufacturers to document all the details associated with formula management such as the list of ingredients used, how the ingredients used, tracking the ingredient details, and storing and securing the formulas with approval workflow. Plus, the restricted access is also enabled.
Batch processing
According to cGMP guidelines, the drugs must be manufactured in batches, in place of the disorganized way. The ERP that can easily differentiate and well-handle the various types of drug production in batches helps a ton.
The pharma ERP for SMEs excels in dynamically sizing the batches as per the specifications, performing batch monitoring activities, the ability to print BMR and MBR, and SOPs execution.
Lot traceability
Going conventionally, if anything goes wrong it’s arduous for the manufacturers to exact where the problem is and then take necessary actions, which hampers productivity.
The lot traceability feature in ERP provides a 360-degree view of drug manufacturing from procurement to distribution and sales, which enable the manufacturers to easily manage recall situations and make product recalls at speed if required.
Document management
In the highly regulated industry, it’s vital to maintain a record of all the data and its documentation for future analysis and audit checks. The ERP solution helps in storing the data in an organized manner that’s stored in silos to meet compliance needs and legal vigilance.
Sales and marketing management
Not to forget, but the sales and marketing segment is integral to manufacturing SMEs as they are the front face of the pharma company. The ERP software helps them to work in tandem with sales order and contract management, precise sales quotations creation, harnessing customer’s records and history, launching marketing campaigns, and crafting automated marketing workflows.
Takeaway
The pharma ERP for SMEs is no more a novelty, it has turned into a great necessity to sustain, survive, and thrive in the fierce competition. The aforementioned gives no reason to SMEs to overlook the importance of the ERP solution in the manufacturing processes and operations. Don’t hang fire to integrate the best ERP software!