In the last few years, the pharma industry is experiencing high competition in the unpredictable market. Here the owners or managers need to be quick enough to make appropriate decisions. The important decisions include checking data to cope up with the healthcare activities, manage the production requirements and also take care of the changes informed by the government.
Pharma software is a gift of technology to the pharma business. The pharma software helps the users to manage the production, delivery as well as payments of the stock. It helps the users by providing additional support such as automation, integration, reports, and much more. It becomes important to manage the inventory as well as the requirements to have a good impression in the competitive market.
We are here with a few points that help to select the best pharma ERP software. It becomes necessary to select the software that meets the requirements rather than buying ones having all the features. Let us have a look over all the points that will surely help you to get the best software for your business.
- Required features :
It is suggested to pen down all the required features for your business. Every software comes with numerous features and also new features can be added with extra cost. Having too many useless features can lead to wastage of time, instead, you must look up the software having features of your requirement.
- Managing inventory :
It is seen that most of the ERP software provide inventory management features but with the pharma industry, one major consideration is the management of primary expiring, first in first out method of stock administration, and much more. It is necessary as one needs to constantly provide high-quality and non-dangerous products to the users.
- Transparent production process and easy tracing :
To have proper concentration and effectiveness, it is important to have a detailed eye over every part of the work. It is not very practical to do in the pharmaceutical industry. In case if anything goes wrong, it becomes important to understand where the exact problem is, it is to be known precisely where exactly in the plant the problem occurs. Hence the pharma ERP software must allow you to have a close eye over every process and ingredient of the supply chain right from procurement to closing sale.
- Control :
21 CFR part 11 is an essential FDA regulation governing the pharma business. Regardless of the ERP, you opt for and the features it includes, you must be sure that it helps you with the information, handwritten signatures and digital signatures are accounted for in every product and can be adopted through the overall manufacturing process. If the ERP you select is not able to adjust with this regulation, it must provide the facility of workflows, approvals, audit trails and much more to assist and make compliance simpler.
- Assure good quality :
Security is paramount significant in the industry, and hence any good pharma software must embrace high-quality assurance capabilities. One must look for a system that supports the features such as QA testing, digital processes, automated tasks, and much more along with pace testing and guaranteed validity.
- Manage the recipe/ raw materials :
Formulation management is much more important in the pharma industry. A formula or recipe can be defined as the process of producing any product and it is considered the most valuable asset of any business unit. It is seen that to get success as a pharma manufacturer it is important to manage its recipe properly. The formula management includes securing, controlling, and tracking the formula. The best pharma ERP software allows SMEs to document all the required details of every minute ingredient with its use in the manufacturing process. It also allows tracking the store formulation and data with approval. The ERP software provides selective access to the formula and its use.
- Processes in departments :
The manufacturing process in the pharma industry is done in the departments or say batches following the cGMP guidelines. The ERP software that can understand and follow the guidelines is considered the best for your business. The key to check is whether the ERP can differentiate and handle the production of capsules or gelatins, tablets or powders, syrups, packets, etc. separately or not. The software must be able to seamlessly handle the entire process right from batch creation to tickets and lastly the closure with the calculated production cost. It must consider labor, material, production equipment, and other costs to calculate the production cost. The best part of any pharma industry is its readiness to print MBR and BMR, perform dynamic activities, monitor batches, and execute SOPs and much more activities with ease.
- Track the lot :
The pharma manufacturing people have to keep checking every activity of the manufacturing process as if by any chance anything goes wrong, they quickly need to find the spot and check when, where, and what has happened within the manufacturing plant. The pharma ERP software comes with one of the best features: lot tracing. This feature allows the manufacturers to check the ingredients that are used in the whole supply chain from beginning to end. This helps to manage any recall situation and swift the activities if found necessary. Apart from this, that software also allows the users to have mock recalls and understand how it works. This gives a 360-degree view of the lot’s activity and makes sure that every lot is available in subsequent operations.
Conclusion
These were a few of the points to select the best pharma ERP software for your business unit. It becomes necessary to take care of all the major points as the pharma industry and its products are a bit more complicated and taking care of quality and all the activities with the workflow are much more important. There is no way to avoid or mislead any activity of this industry. Hence we hope these points will help you to choose the software for yourself.
