Pharmac specialises in mechanical automated dose dispensing and medication safety services, as well as the development of customers’ digital tools. Pharmac’s growth has been strong for the last five years, and the company has encountered new kinds of business needs. As a result, it was no longer possible to develop the old ERP system. Pharmac wanted to build a system with Solita where data moves seamlessly and covers the entire production lifecycle. Integrations played a key role in the project.
Pharmac
New ERP meets the demanding future needs of the pharmaceutical industry
Pharmac’s old ERP system had come to an end of its service life and no longer met the company’s business needs. The fast-growing company wanted added efficiency and ease its day-to-day operations. Pharmac and Solita built a modern system with agile methods, tailored to employees’ wishes, which enables knowledge-based management, scales to future needs and reduces the amount of manual work.
Pharmac ERP project has been critical for us. New ERP enables growth and secures business continuity. Beside that it’s been also a great opportunity for internal growth in means of IT developing skills, professional co-operation and successful teamwork.
Karoliina Kaijasilta-Järvenpää CEO, Pharmac
We wanted a system that will also meet future needs and that we can develop further. The old ERP system had reached the limits of its capacity and knowledge-based management was not possible. But now, we can automate reporting, for example.
Jani Leppänen Technology Manager, Pharmac
The old system was tailored to the industry and the company’s needs at the time, but it was laborious to maintain. Due to Pharmac’s unique needs, it wasn’t possible to replace the new ERP system with a ready-made product. The new system covers the entire production lifecycle from the receipt and processing of orders to production and finally to packing and billing.
Results
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The new ERP system responds to future needs and can be developed further
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Reduction of manual work in production, customer service and payroll, streamlining of processes
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The new system enables knowledge-based management
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Improved data reliability
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Faster and more reliable distribution of medicines
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Increased ease of use and intuitiveness of the system
Reforming processes and working methods
The basis of the conceptualisation of the new ERP was to look at the processes and working methods to make streamlining possible. The collaboration between Solita and Pharmac consisted of two phases. Solita’s design experts initially mapped out the challenges and needs, and the solution was built on this foundation.
How do Pharmac’s employees work? What are their wishes and needs? Interviews with Pharmac’s employees gave an idea of what kind of solution would best address the problems. Deep, open discussion has been an important part of cooperation and success.
Mikko Koivisto Account Manager, Solita
The customer volume has been scaled up gradually, initially only the core functions were taken into production. The gradual introduction has ensured the safety of the reform.
Shaking up old ways of doing things
The aim was to modernise and streamline customer service processes.
“We wanted to reduce challenges in production, invoicing and management by listening to their needs and responding to them”, says Solita’s Project Manager Sari Villanen.
The motto was not to use new technologies to create the same kind of system.
“We wanted to shake up old operating and thinking models. We believe that we succeeded well in this”, says Koivisto.
On the same team
The new agile ERP system was the largest IT project in Pharmac’s history. Both parties praise the cooperation and commitment. Also Pharmac’s CEO, Karoliina Kaijasilta-Järvenpää actively participated in the development of the ERP system. Transparency and pulling together were at the heart of the work.
Pharmac operates in a regulated environment where there is no margin for error. Still, the atmosphere remained good throughout the project.
“ Collaboration and interaction have been successful. The culture of Solita and Pharmac are very similar. We combine high demands and professionalism with human-centricity.
Johanna Vesterinen Production Manager , Pharmac
“The customer-supplier relationship with Solita has faded into the background. We form a team and the cooperation has been seamless”, Pharmac’s Leppänen describes.
Getting to know agile methods
“Especially at the production stage, when we’ve been able to gradually introduce new things to the entity, agility has enabled things. We’ll be able to take into account scaling and user feedback when we have a basis in place for further development”, says Vesterinen.
Solita’s agile development team, which included designers, developers, scrum-master and architects, worked with Pharmac.
In the beginning, everything was new and challenging. When we got started, everything went well. You’d think we’d been working together for years. We’ve become familiar with the working methods.
Jani Leppänen Technology Manager, Pharmac
The learning experience was mutual: Pharmac had no previous experience of using agile methods. For Solita, on the other hand, understanding the industry and terminology required familiarisation too.
“Pharmac’s desire to learn new methods is reflected in the end result. It was great to see how the operations developed in line with agile methods and how the pieces fell into place one by one”, explains Koivisto.
With the new system, Pharmac has been able to eliminate many manual steps from the customer service and packaging department activities.
In the development phase, the system being easy and intuitive to use was of particular importance to us. In my opinion, we’ve succeeded in these goals and in further development we’ll be able to measure things better.
Johanna Vesterinen Production Manager , Pharmac
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Mikko Koivisto Account Manager, Solita
[email protected] +358 407 331 048
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