Integrating ERP and manufacturing in pharmaceuticals

Unlike most industries in which it's the leading, large manufacturers that are sharing data between the plant and the enterprise, the pharmaceutical industry is widely adopting integration as a way to streamline operations and ensure compliance. The integration is being used to collect plant data, as well as sending ERP data down to the plant. AMR Research Inc. offers a breakdown of industry adoption of plant-ERP integration. While most of the data flow is from the plant to the enterprise system, there is also a counter flow from the ERP to the plant.

• 59 percent of pharmaceutical manufacturers now send automated inventory updates from the plant to the ERP system.
• 54 percent use automated communication of production orders from the ERP system to the manufacturing system.
• 39 percent use automated quality updates from the manufacturing system to the ERP system.
• 34 percent are sending automated updates from the plant to the ERP system on work-in-progress.
• 30 percent synchronize recipes between the ERP and manufacturing systems.
• 24 percent of plants communicate equipment availability from the plant to the ERP system.

--By Rob Spiegel, Contributing Editor, Automation World