Customer Success Story Implementation of BatchMaster ERP with SAP Business one (BME B1) software solution at Syncom Healthcare Limited The Client Corp Office: SYNCOM HOUSE 40, Niranjanpur, Dewas Naka Indore (M.P.)-452010, INDIA Tel: +91 (731) 2577470 / 71 / 72 / 73 Fax: +91 (731) 4038712 Factory: D - 42, UPSIDC Industrial Area, SELAQUI (Dehradun) U.A.-248197, INDIA Tel: +91 (135) 26699131 Fax: +91 (135) 26988220 Website: www.syncomhealthcare.com Software provider India Office: BatchMaster Software Pvt Ltd Brilliant Solitaire, Plot 6-A, Office 201-A to 204-B, Scheme 78, Part-II, Indore- 452010. +91-731-4008031/35/39 sales@batchmaster.com www.batchmaster.co.in Corporate Office: BatchMaster Software 23191, La Cadena Drive, Suite 101 Laguna Hills, CA 92653 - USA Phone: +1 (949) 5831646 www.batchmaster.com
THE CLIENT Syncom Healthcare Limited, with core competencies in the field of health care products has a successful track record of more than 45 years in the pharmaceutical segment. The company has two different operational locations, a sales office located at Indore, MP, and a manufacturing unit comprising of an ultra-modern 'State Of Art Technology' accredited with WHO - GMP compliant certification at Selaqui, near Dehradun in the state of Uttaranchal, India. Syncom manufactures and sells Over The Counter (OTC), Generic and Ethical drugs in over 26 Indian states. They also export their products to International markets. The company's product offerings include Tablets, capsules, liquid orals, ointments, protein powders, eye / ear drops, external oils & dry syrups. In the Indian domestic market, Syncom sells its branded products through a channel of 50 distributors who in turn sell the goods to 400 appointed stockists and 2,50,000 retailers supported with a field force of over 400 medical representatives. In addition to their own manufacturing of branded OTC, and wellness products, Syncom is also involved in 'third party manufacturing / product development' and 'contract manufacturing / loan licensing'. The belief that 'Great People Create Great Organizations' has been at the core of the company's operational philosophy. People at Syncom Healthcare Ltd. are united by a common commitment to significantly improve the quality of life, by manufacturing, developing and marketing best quality healthcare solutions. TIME FOR CHANGE Syncom has ambitious expansion plans of establishing an extensive marketing and distribution network in India and across the world. They realized that, their current legacy software system, and financial software will not suffice in the long run. They already had a lot of issues / concerns with their legacy system which was inadequate to support their complete business needs consisting of two separate yet dependent operational locations - Indore and Dehradun. Following are some of the major concerns which strengthened their feeling of need for change: Ü Inventory: a) Inventory discrepancies between actual Vs on papers due to lack of raw material tracking. In the legacy system, it was not possible to track raw material once issued for production. Many times a production batch was partially closed but the unused inventory was not updated in the system. b) Although for their records Syncom was recording vendor lot numbers, but identifying products which contained these raw materials used to take a long time and resulted in unproductive man hours. The legacy software did not support lot traceability. If a lot is rejected, it took lot of time for them to pinpoint the faulty raw material used in the product. c) Another reason for unreliable inventory data was because there was lack of clear accountability between inventory used for third party product development and their own label products. They had a common inventory repository source for the two. Ü Quality control: a) The Legacy system did not have a QC module, purchase QC records were maintained manually. b) Identification of items which needed QC testing took a long time because both quarantine (with red sticker) and released (with green stickers) items resided un-segregated in the same ware house. c) There was no accounting of non- conforming / scrapped items in the system. d) There was no provision to define specifications for raw materials and finished goods in the system.
Ü Planning and Scheduling: a) They did not have a planning and scheduling module (MPS, MRP) in their legacy ERP system. Syncom's planning and scheduling was triggered by pending / outstanding sales order (SO) from third party, contract manufacturers and from their own distributors. Planning was typically done for three months. Calculation of all the raw materials and ordering them at the right time based on their lead time was a big challenge. They always ran the risk of stopping the batch if any raw material is short or missing. Many a times there used to be excess production due to excess projection by sales representatives. Ü Purchase: a) The legacy system did not restrict receipt of items more than ordered and even at a different cost. It caused a mismatch in the actual inventory quantities and inventory cost. b) Often multiple orders of the same material to the same vendor were made. If the same raw material was used in many products, multiple orders of the material were made as a PO was made against a SO and batch. Ü Finance and Accounting: a) Finance software was not integrated with their legacy ERP system. As a consequence they were reentering information of inventory, production and sales manually for accounting purposes. It was prone to errors and not real time. b) Inventory and WIP costing was not available and required lot of efforts. c) Outstanding A/P, A/R business partner (BP) invoice updates were not readily available due to lack of connectivity between actual information and that available in Finance software. d) Finance reports were not up to date and took lot of time to make. e) Due to unavailability of ware house transfer feature in the legacy system, for accounting purposes, their OTC and wellness products produced in Dehradun were sold to Indore office. This resulted in an increased sale in Dehradun and increased expense at Indore. ÜFormulation: a) It was very difficult for Syncom to assess WIP status, because their BOM were single level and contained information of issued raw materials, packaging materials and of the FG which was to be produced. b) Due to single level BOM structure, new BOM were created for the same formulation with different packaging. c) Tracking of formula / BOM history and revisions was a problem and needed lot of efforts. d) They always ran the risk of abrupt stoppage of the batch production because of lack of provision to define substitute items. e) Determining accurate batch costing consumed lot of time because the legacy system did not support accounting information like variable costs, consumables etc. Ü Contract Manufacturing /Loan licensing: a) Due to lack of bin management in the legacy system, Syncom maintained two companies on papers - one for loan licensing / contract manufacturing and the other for their own products and third party manufacturing. b) The legacy system did not support third party product development, all the information had to be maintained manually.
SYSTEM SELECTION PROCESS: Syncom was aware, that their business processes were quite complex due to a wide range of products which included several hundred formulas and packagings. In addition, Syncom needed clear and accurate real time information of all the business processes to take well informed proactive decisions at the right time. They started looking for an economical software solution that could suffice these needs and shortlisted BM ERP B1, and Microsoft Navision. Due to their prior bad experience with implementation of SAP R3 in the sister organization, they did not implement the same software. The feature which tilted the decision in favor of BM ERP B1 was the 'scalability' option of the solution. They could implement the solution with smaller number of 'users' in the beginning, and add 'additional users' at a later point of time i.e. as the business grew. Other compelling features which drew their attention included inventory management (lot numbers, lot traceability, bin management), quality control/quality assurance, formulation (formula security, formula approval, BOM), robust planning and scheduling modules, finance and accounting (Proper reflection of Gross profit, control over cash fund management, Real time P&L and balance sheet reporting). SHORT IMPLEMENTATION TIME: For BatchMaster team challenges started from the very beginning, Syncom decided for BME B1 in the end of February 2014 and they wanted to go live from April 1st 2014. Thanks to stream lined implementation methodology of BatchMaster, their team was able to accomplish this difficult task in time. c) Lot numbering of inventory with complete forward and backward lot traceability at a click of a button has been a big relief from the regulatory compliance perspective. d) They have already started appreciating benefits of inventory costing features. By changing inventory costing from average to FIFO has resulted in increased gross profit. Quality control/ Quality Assurance: a) BME SAP B1 has made cgmp compliance effortless. After implementation, every item received at the dock of Syncom is automatically assigned HOLD status and is kept in an assigned quarantine bin till QC is performed and released by QA. All the QC related information of RM, IM and FG now is maintained within the system with the facility of printing them on COA if needed. b) Now inventory is defined on the basis of type like on hold, release etc. and kept in defined bins and movement within the bins is based on inventory type. Purchase: a) Another remarkable change for Syncom had been streamlined procurement operation. With implementation of BME SAP B1, GRPO values cannot exceed PO value and system will not permit to receive Items without PO. POST IMPLEMENTATION: Inventory: a) BM ERP B1 implementation has synchronized inventory and accounting. Now Sycom has real time visibility of inventory in the warehouse, inventory in WIP and as FG. This information has helped them greatly in making best use of available resources. b) With the Bin Management feature of BME SAP B1, the need of maintaining two companies on paper was eliminated. They now maintain separate inventory bins for loan licensing, contract manufacturing and for their own manufacturing. There is accurate information of available inventory with costs for own / third party / contract manufacturing.
Finance and accounting: a) Inventory accounting reports are real time due to synchronization of inventory with accounting. b) Credit limits have been linked to aging analysis now and with bill to bill knocking adjustment. It has resulted in increased cash flow, streamlined credit limits in terms of amount as well as days. c) Due to strong real time accounting system, generating general ledger, books, profits and loss, balances and many other reports are just a click away. d) Due to availability of warehouse feature in BM ERP B1, Syncom, does the ware house transfer from Dehradun to Indore office. It has made accounting very simple and accurate as compared to before where they were showing sales to Indore office. e) System automatically selects tax rate based on location of BP. Within M.P. value added tax (VAT) is added for interstate sales/ purchase and for out of M.P., central sales tax (CST) is added. Formulation: a) BME SAP B1 provided a robust centralized formula management. One of the biggest advantage Syncom realized that they have is complete real time visibility of the formulation stage, lot numbers of the raw materials used, quality control and other critical information of audit trail (revisions and history ), formula status (active, inactive) and formula security. b) Being involved in Contract Manufacturing and Loan Licensing, formula security is very crucial for Syncom. Formula approval feature of BM ERP B1 has proven to be useful, now they can define single or multi-level formulas and use them after proper approval by the stake holders. c) As applicable for most pharmaceutical's in India, for Syncom also, low pricing and high quality is the key priority. BatchMaster's fully integrated costing module provides real time cost information. Granular level costing of the formula, its packaging, labor, setup, and overhead has made decision making very simple. Now if required they have the capability to dynamically modify the formula to ensure that they meet desired target costs. Bill of Material (BOM): a) At Syncom, same formula is used for multiple finished goods (multiple packaging). Their base formula remains same but packaging varies based on Stock Keeping Units (SKUs). After BM ERP B1 they can now associate multiple packaging to a single formula. Above all they can maintain audit trail of BOM versions and perform costing independent of formula. CONCLUSION: Although it is still early in the implementation, Syncom anticipates further benefits, as more and more of their employees are taking advantage of the enormous features offered by BM ERP B1. BM ERP B1 has formed the foundation on which Syncom can grow their business exponentially without additional investment in IT infrastructure. With a positive experience with BM ERP B1, employees at Syncom felt that they will have no hesitation in using new enhanced software 'BM ERP B1 for pharmaceutical's in future. For more information about BatchMaster Software, contact sales@batchmaster.com BatchMaster Software Pvt Ltd Brilliant Solitaire, Plot 6-A, Office 201-A to 204-B, Scheme 78, Part-II, Indore-452010. +91-731-4008031/35 Fax: +91 731 4008033 sales@batchmaster.com www.batchmaster.co.in Copyright 2015 BatchMaster Software, a division of eworkplace Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective companies.