A major international pharmaceutical manufacturer has installed a computerised dispensary management system from UK-based CI Systems.
"We firmly believe in the benefits of a computerised DMS, and the importance of dispensing was emphasised by the inspector from the UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency," said the pharmaceutical company's head of production. "One of the advantages of a computerised DMS is that it eliminates virtually all paperwork from the booth."
CI Systems" Ci-DMS was implemented in two dispensary booths. The system is used to control both manual dispensing of individual components and the addition of dispensed materials and bulk packs into reusable IBCs. These booths provide an advantage in terms of containment because there is no need to add pre-dispensed bags in the production area where there would be a risk of dust and contamination from each bag.
The Ci-DMS database is hosted off site on two virtual servers (using VMware) - one for the live environment and one for the validation environment. A specially configured interface links Ci-DMS to the company's SAP ERP system, which runs on a server located offshore.
Ci-DMS receives transactions for material lots and process orders from the ERP system then returns transactions for material dispensed and lot adjustments to ensure that the ERP inventory is accurately maintained.
To maximise efficiency in the dispensary and reduce stock movement between the dispensary and the warehouse the dispensary is treated as a kanban stock staging location. Instead of using the ERP to allocate particular lots to particular process orders, the dispensary operators select material available in the dispensary. As each dispensing is completed lot consumption transactions are sent back from Ci-DMS causing the ERP system to issue the materials used against the process order and to replenish the stock in the dispensing area automatically.
In addition to supplying the DMS software and ERP interface, CI Systems also prepared all of the documents necessary for onsite acceptance tests and performed those tests on behalf of the client.