Cipla Inc.
Cipla engaged Invenio to create a highly customised SAP environment
Cipla is a multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company based in Mumbai, India. They have a presence in over 180 countries, with a constantly growing portfolio of over 20 products and 65 therapeutic therapies – all with a single, unified standard of quality and care. As they continue to grow, Cipla is looking to become a leading global healthcare company, using technology and innovation to meet the everyday needs of all of its patients.
Business Challenges
Using their previous IT systems, Cipla had noticed issues starting to appear. While these issues had been fairly insignificant, over time they began to have a negative impact on the business. These issues included:
- Slow workflow processes due to the manual creation of financial management reports
- Heavy dependency on a locally developed, independent information system, leaving them open to continuity issues should something go wrong
- Inaccurate information appearing within accounts receivables and payable
- Material stock and inventory littered with mistakes, largely due to human error
- Large amounts of time being spent on preparation of financial management reports, hindering normal activities and affecting profitability
Because of the nature of the industry, Cipla had certain requirements when it came to stock and inventory. Mistakes in these processes and calculations could result in severe problems for Cipla, as variations in the dose of medications in a box, for example, can be incredibly serious. Cipla's solution needed to be sophisticated, flexible and robust, while still being capable of complex controls, bonus split requirements, MQC (material quality calculations) and master recipe calculations.
Invenio's Solution
In order to tackle this series of fast moving and complex problems, Invenio employed a 3-part detailed solution:
1. Implementation of SAP solutions in key areas, in order to enhance organisational performance. These areas included:
- Collaborative innovation development
- Responsive supply networks
- Compliant manufacturing
- Aftermarket service
2. Implementation of specialised solutions, allowing for increased control of operations across all branches of business. These solutions included:
- Quality assurance and development
- FDA-GMP compliance controls
- Batch management
- SAP advanced track and tracking
3. Design and implementation of innovative, customised solutions, such as:
- Bonus Split (free item delivery): A function that calculates the stock for bonus items, derives the net requirement of sale quantity and matches that with available stock
- MQC (material quality calculations): Enables Cipla to automate the MQC values for medications master recipes
- Material Requirement Planning Summary: Automated summaries of shortages, forecasting of materials needed and quick analysis reporting
- Shelf Life Management: A control mechanism to exclude expired batches from MRP runs
- Transform Finance Management: Allows Cipla to convert existing finance payment information into automated finance controls, eliminating the human factor altogether
- BMR (batch manufacturing records) and BPR (batch packing records): Using OLE (object linking and embedding) objects and lined enablers to provide a single snapshot about any materials, providing traceability for every batch created. OLE is a proprietary technology developed by Microsoft, and allows embedding and linking to documents and other objects within the system
The Results
The implementation of these various, highly customised solutions went smoothly and allowed Cipla to enjoy an automated and highly sophisticated SAP ERP environment. The changes allowed Cipla to move faster in every area, thanks to streamlined integration across every area of the business in multiple locations. This helped them achieve their goals of delivering exceptional customer care and resulted in higher levels of customer satisfaction at every stage of the experience. They also enjoyed:
Overall, the 3-part solution implemented within Cipla comprised of an integrated information system with uniformed processes across all units. They saw an increase in consistency and accuracy of reporting and a much more sophisticated, granular level view on inventory. All of this adds up to better control and transparency at every level, translating into a more efficient working process across all elements of Cipla.