The pharmaceutical is a sector that has a great responsibility of taking care of patients and their treatment. Due to this, it becomes very relevant for this sector to invest in technology and innovation. In the coming times, these investments will even accelerate their business. As you know about the current global COVID-19 pandemic, this pandemic has accelerated the transformation of this sector to digital platforms. Furthermore, the pharmaceutical industry is also focusing on making investments in digital platforms like ERP – EnterpriseResource Planning. This software has, to a great extent, these organizations in increasing efficiency, streamlining processes, and complying with the statutory rules and regulations. There are many benefits of the ERP pharmaceutical industry. It has helped this sector in achieving many goals and objectives and will continue to help toachieve in the future also.
Role of ERP in the pharmaceutical industry
- Irrespective of the small or big, statutory or non-statutory, there are many rules and regulations that a pharmaceutical company may have to comply with. Innovation tools such as ERP have helped it in complying with the same. Streamlining of the processes has been made easier through this software. From receiving the purchase orders, manufacturing to the delivery of produced items, this software has helped to a great extent in improving the flow of all the steps. Different processes such as packing, delivery, manufacturing, storing, etc. Has been improved and made efficient. The effort that otherwise a pharmaceutical company may have to put in managing such processes has been decreased with the use of ERP. All the processes have been mentioned above are very time-consuming, along with this, the chances of human errors are also very high. In the case of the pharma sector, any possibility of human errors can be very risky and can be very dangerous for the life of a patient. But the use of ERP software has removed all such chances of human errors and risk to the life of patients.
- The pharma sector faces many challenges such as
- Lack of visibility in the processes and transactions.
- Difficulty in following the flow of the supply chain.
- The inefficiency and ineffectiveness of production processes.
- Lack of communication all the processes.
To cope with all these challenges successfully, ERP software has been brought into use.
- ERP software has assisted in bringing uniformity in the process from beginning to end through various ways such as quality assurance, sales, batch production, back-office functions, inventory control, and other ways.
- When the use of ERP is aligned with the strategic goals of the pharma sector and the whole workforce has adopted using it, it can bring many benefits to this sector.
What are the benefits of ERP software to the pharma industry?
There is no doubt that this software has provided many sectors with different benefits but especially for the pharma industry it has been very useful and beneficial. The points mentioned below can be referred to as the benefits that ERP has brought to the pharma sector.:
- Formulation and pre-formulation: As already stated above, there are many strict rules are put on the organizations engaged in the manufacturing of drugs. Such rules include the working of employees, monitoring of raw materials, handling of finished goods, etc.
There are many rigid processes that employees are strictly required to follow during the pre-formulation stage. Such processes that employees are required to follow are explaining of procedures of production processes, the way in which production stages of the drugs are to be scheduled, how the quantities of the drug produced to be measured. All these formulations are compulsory as well as difficult to be to comply with. But to remove such difficulties ERP software has been brought into existence. It has not only made it easy to comply with these processes but also has removed the possibilities of major human errors. However, with the use of it, employees are not required to keep a constant view of these processes and steps.
- The costing of drug products: The costing of drug products has never been easy. There are a lot of considerations that need to be taken into account to do the costing of drug products. Such considerations will be including the arrangement of materials, the supplier relationship management software of raw materials, the constant monitoring of the supply chain. If there won’t be a centralized platform then the cost of these products will become very difficult. All the costs of different departments have to be recorded in different accounts. Also, changes in data and updates will be there that will make this process even more difficult. Consequently, the cost of the final produced product will be even more difficult, time-consuming, and full of human errors. But the use of an ERP system has made this process very simple and easy, all the costs can be recorded in one centralized place. It can be done in real-time and the department managing the finance can easily know the points where corrections and improvements need to be made.
- The management of inventory and scalability: It is very important for the pharma sector to maintain the efficiency and effectiveness of the management of the inventory. The COVID-19 pandemic has made it even more important. Products can be traced in real-time with the use of ERP software in the pharma sector. To make it easy and less time-consuming materials can be given serial numbers and prevent the situations like stock-outs. ERP platform has helped this sector in easily tracing materials and to give alerts in case of stock-outs. Whenever there will be an increase in demand without a proportionate increase in supply, this software will indicate to the production department to increase the production to cope with the increased demand. With the help of demand analysis providers by the ERP software, the production plans can be designed accordingly to maintain efficiency in the process.
These are the benefits of ERP for pharmaceutical manufacturers. However these benefits are not limited, there are a lot more benefits of this software to the pharma sector.
