Pharmaceutical Distribution Software

The pharmaceutical industry is a priority target market for IBS. The company works with major pharmaceutical companies to distribute some of the most carefully controlled substances in the world.

Based on ENTERPRISE – IBS' integrated business software solution – IBS PHARMA is designed to address the critical requirements of pharmaceutical distribution. The software solution supports the tracking and distribution of drugs (narcotics), biotechnology products, medical supplies and extremely hazardous materials. Uncompromising lot control and quality assurance make the pharmaceutical industry process model one of the most demanding challenges within distribution and supply chain management.

ENTERPRISE is a world-leading business software suite for distribution and supply chain management. It is designed to fulfil the requirements of worldwide business-to-business trading. According to recent studies conducted by AMR Research and Frost & Sullivan, IBS is a consistent top market leader and supplier for supply chain execution and management software.

The industry focus puts IBS at the forefront of fully integrated products that are tailored to fit the needs of the industry – pharmaceutical applications designed to address critical issues in order to achieve excellent business performance. IBS PHARMA will enable distributors to:

• Abide by the rules and regulations connected with pharmaceutical distribution
• Achieve improved control of inventory
• Achieve required quality levels
• Achieve required service levels
• Handle high order volumes during peak hours
• Increase profit margins

IBS provides the pharmaceutical distribution sector with a complete solution that spans hardware, software and services. The company can take full responsibility for the entire customer installation as a one-stopshop supplier. The systems and services have a high level of security and are extremely reliable.

ENTERPRISE and IBS PHARMA are designed to increase ROI, efficiency, profitability and productivity while keeping expenses down. At the same time, the software enhances customer service and growth. IBS industry experts and the Global Competence Center in Germany provide an unmatched level of expertise for the pharmaceutical distribution industry. Our experts work closely with customers to fully understand the business processes, anticipate future requirements and configure the best solutions.

The IBS service portfolio offers a broad range of professional services, including the mapping of business processes, technical know-how and implementation, training, Project Management and pure business consulting. The services are characterized by quality and competence. IBS consultants have profound knowledge about customers' business operations and provide continuous service after implementation. This long-term partnership generates major benefits for our customers in terms of time and money and is one of the reasons why IBS repeatedly ranks very high in customer satisfaction ratings.

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IBS Pharmaceutical Distribution Software – Tailored for the pharmaceutical industry

IBS PHARMA has a better than 90 percent functional product fit for the pharmaceutical distribution industry. The solution focuses on all key areas of pharmaceutical distribution: sales order management, e-business, Inventory Control, procurement, warehousing, logistics, Financials and business intelligence and control. Integrated tools for business analysis can enable you to maximize profits and control critical success factors such as:

• Automated business processes
• Automated decision support
• Fill rates and on-time deliveries
• Operational costs
• Optimized supply chains and collaboration
• Periodical improvements in KPIs and subsequent ROI
• Procurement

The IT solution combines the use of secure, reliable servers, operational models and pharmaceutical application software. IBS PHARMA provides up-to-the-minute status of all processes in the supply chain processing, with documented volumes of 2.9 million order lines per hour with an enquiry response time of 0.04 seconds.

With advanced customer-oriented functionality that focuses on performance and service, IBS PHARMA is built to address your needs. The software solution has been designed to address a number of issues arising from the highly specific requirements of the pharmaceutical distribution industry and fully supports the following functionalities:

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Enhanced procurement features

• EMERGENCY PROCUREMENT

  When the system detects a sudden change in customer buying patterns, an emergency procurement suggestion is triggered outside of the usual purchase plans. This reduces the risk of unexpected stock-out scenarios for you

• PURCHASE ORDER CREATION

  Due to the sheer number of products that are held at multiple distribution centers, and the need to achieve a high customer service level, automating procurement is crucial. The IBS solution provides several options to simplify the order creation procedure. These options can enable you to reduce errors associated with data entry and speed up delivery times. These alternatives include:
  • Automatic creation of purchase order from sales orders (back-to-back orders)
  • Copying an existing purchase order
  • Creating a purchase order from a purchase suggestion
  • Creating a purchase order from a requisition
  • Creating a purchase order from a supplier quotation
  • Manual purchase order entry

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Enhanced warehouse management features

• CONTAINER ASSIGNMENT

  Container workflow is enhanced and automated with pick labels, number of pick instructions per container, fill rate enhancement in container assignment, item consolidation sequence, container document , and container confirmation for batch controlled items. These advantages help to speed up volume processing, reduce lead-times and increase customer service levels

• INTERFACE WITH WAREHOUSE AUTOMATION SYSTEMS

  Warehouses are typically large and can contain in excess of 100,000 different products. Most large distribution centers will have automated picking systems, such as Peem or Knapp, to cope with the large order volumes and the extensive range of products. The system interfaces with these warehouse automation systems and supports such functions as 'container routing', 'send pick instructions' and 'receive pick confirmation'. Interfacing results in shorter lead-times, reduced delivery errors and, ultimately, increased customer satisfaction

• MERGE LINES FOR PICK

  More efficient pick processing from IBS PHARMA lets you have one merged pick. Instead of picking all independent order lines, those with the same item, customer number and delivery address are always merged. When a pick list per order is selected, the same items within an order are merged. When a running pick list per customer is selected, multiple orders with the same item are merged

• NARCOTICS CONTROL

  Most countries have legal restrictions on the handling of narcotics. You are expected to report storage, stock movements, transportation, procurement and sales to the appropriate legal authority. IBS PHARMA reports all of this information for you, in the format required by the local authority in question. You can spend more time concentrating on your core business

• PICK QUALITY CONTROL

  The solution automatically confirms that the pick process uses DESVESCH quality controlled containers, helping to ensure compliance with pharmaceutical shipping regulations

• PICK SUGGESTION PRINT

  Volume picking control helps to make best use of current inventory. The system suggests large pick quantities from overstock locations and smaller quantities from the primary pick location

• SINGLE-STEP RF RECEPTION

  IBS PHARMA speeds up reception with radio frequency (RF) support. You can use RF reception to decide whether to put away items directly in the warehouse, without review. RF capability also promotes fast and accurate reception of goods with put-away location suggestions, preferred pick and put-away unit handling for location replenishment, and label printing for put-away and replenishment, plus sorting and information entry functionality

• SUSPEND SHORT PICKED

  Problems might arise with stock balances when an item is short picked. The system can automatically suspend a warehouse location, meaning that no more activities are created for that location. An alert can be set up for notification about stock taking from a specific location

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Enhanced logistics and distribution features

• CASH ON DELIVER

  Some businesses require sales orders to be paid with cash on delivery (COD). If a sales order has a term of payment marked as 'Cash on delivery', IBS PHARMA automatically updates freight documents with this information

• CONSOLIDATED PICK AND SHIP

  Picking in a warehouse must be quick and efficient, and it is vital to consolidate morning orders. In practice, this means that a collection of individual picking lists is grouped together under one consolidation number. Multiple orders from each of your customers also require consolidation so that all products are picked at the same time. In order to facilitate the loading of vans, IBS PHARMA includes information about total weight and volume, route and preferred vehicle on the pick lists

• CUSTOMER RETURN COLLECTION

  The driver who delivers goods for a specific route is sometimes required to pick up customer returns and deliver them back to the dispatching warehouse. A business partner request handles this situation automatically. Whenever a route delivery list is printed, the system checks the BPR lines for any goods that are marked for return

• LOADING LOCATION INFORMATION

  An automated final completion check helps to ensure the actual arrival at the loading location of all goods that are to be delivered by a given route

• OUTBOUND SHIPMENT VALUE CONTROL

  For insurance reasons, the value of goods transported on a certain vehicle may sometimes not exceed a specific value. On the other hand, it might not be profitable to dispatch a shipment whose value is below the cost of shipping. IBS PHARMA lets you specify shipment values to better manage and control profitability

• ROUTE PLANNING

  A route is defined to cover a sequence of customers in a specific region where products are to be delivered. Route planning enhances the delivery process and lessens the delivery time to the customer, resulting in increased customer satisfaction

• SHIPMENT DOCUMENTATION

  After container confirmation is completed, automatic shipment documentation is created for such information as loading list, route delivery list, shipment manifest and shipment confirmation sheet. IBS PHARMA adds appropriate container information to the shipment documentation

• WAREHOUSE DIVERSION

  In rare situations (e.g., a warehouse fire or other emergency), all dispatches from a specific warehouse might be stopped, and all deliveries to that warehouse must be diverted. The IBS solution lets you automatically divert shipments to another warehouse, helping to ensure customer service through continued shipments and sales order processing

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Enhanced sales features

• ALERT CAPABILITY

  IBS PHARMA allows you to configure any number of events, based on an infinite combination of parameters, to automatically monitor your entire system and create alerts that notify you of adverse occurrences. Business partner requests can be monitored by the system's alert management tools, resulting in immediate messaging of exceptionbased events to your staff. If a change in an order is observed by the system, immediate notification is possible by email, system message, mobile phone text message or other means. This is helpful for late orders, quantity differences, price differences, re-planning notification or anything affecting the customer's order. You can rest assured that your processes always run at optimum performance, and that action can be taken to avoid costly delays and errors

• CALL AND CONTACT PLANNING

  Call plans define daily work schedules for your sales operatives and provide such information as time to call, customer information, contact names and telephone numbers. Sales orders can be placed directly from the contact plan. You can gain a unique advantage over your competitors

• ELECTRONIC ORDER ENTRY

  Receiving orders electronically streamlines processing for large volumes of daily orders. IBS PHARMA allows orders to be received via EDI, XML, web services, direct communication lines, PC or PDA devices. A stock availability request is performed automatically, and an immediate availability response is returned together with shipping details and timing. Electronic communication can shorten lead-times and result in increased customer satisfaction, as errors are minimized

• ITEM CROSS-REFERENCE FOR PROMOTIONAL CAMPAIGNS

  Item crossreferences can be defined by quantity and unit for promotional campaigns and substitutions. For example, one Aspirin 20 can be substituted by two Aspirin 10

• INVOICE SPLITS FOR NARCOTICS

  Some businesses require separate invoicing for specific items or groups, such as narcotics. You can set up rules for splitting items into several invoices

• ORDER LINE PRICING

  Pricing in the pharmaceutical distribution industry needs to be flexible, allowing for various pricing models. Your software solution must be able to handle contract pricing, multiple price lists, sales promotions, rebates and discounting. Automatic order line pricing results in faster invoicing, improved accuracy and reduced days outstanding

• PHONETIC SEARCHING

  Costly errors can arise from the mispronunciation and consequent misspelling of pharmacological terms, products names and medical expressions. Automatic phonetic correction allows you to easily look up the correct product name. For example, if you enter the letter 'F', the system includes 'PH' in the search function and corrects the product name and description spelling in the order line. This 'fuzzy matching' reduces human error and saves valuable time

• RETURNS HANDLING

  Returns must be handled quickly and efficiently. A range of return codes can be configured to reflect any scenario – from wrong delivery to damaged goods. IBS PHARMA allows you to work with mandatory return reason codes at the order line level to enhance the quality control process and avoid recurring defects

• SALES RESTRICTIONS

  In accordance with varying legal requirements, you may not be allowed to sell all items to all customers. You must be able to limit certain items, such as narcotics, to specific customer groups. Furthermore, functionality for Dangerous Goods Handling and exception item storage is imperative. This ensures security and accuracy throughout the supply chain. Functionality also includes Dangerous Goods Handling, complete with MSDS and TREM cards, and exception item storage

• SUBSTITUTIONS

  You can activate item substitutions on the customer level in the Business Partner file, allowing for specialized service to any customer. CDM (corporate data maintenance)CDM (corporate data maintenance) and forward maintenance support for the business partner, item and table extensions are fully supported

• WAKE-UP CALL

  Your customers must sometimes be reminded that it is time to place a sales order to ensure an afternoon delivery. IBS PHARMA can initiate an automatic wake-up call or an alert message to remind customers to place sales orders before the route plan is started. This can result in increased customer satisfaction and shorter lead-times

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Modular software solution

The flexible nature of IBS PHARMA, and its ease of configuration, enables it to encompass new business models as they arise. This ease of configuration allows for a fast and successful implementation. Your operations will function at an optimum level very quickly.

IBS has a unique position with its software solution for the pharmaceutical distribution market and will continue the research and development to keep ahead of the competition. With a global network of subsidiaries and business partners – software and services available in local languages – IBS offers you fast, easy-to-use and highly cost-efficient systems that help to achieve success in the rapidly changing pharmaceutical market.

Contact IBS for more information on Pharmaceutical distribution software. »