A research and development team responsible for producing clinical product for use in its trials needed a way to track the lot numbers, rate of consumption, and costs of its raw materials. They were doing most of this work on paper and having an incredibly difficult time maintaining this practice. Worse, when they needed to actually make a cross reference to some material used in a production lot, it was no easy task to find the information.
Kellerway stepped in and provided full data and process solutions to provide a new level of transparency into inventory and consumption. By speaking with the customer to understand their process, we built a system that virtually replaced all of their paper records and provided tracability of materials from receipt to consumption.
- Bills of Material – We created records for all the intermediate and final materials that would be produced and the raw materials required for each. This allowed the team to perform material planning to ensure there would be sufficient stock on hand to meet the production goals. The same data was use to create a kitting process in which raw materials were picked from warehouse shelves, kitted, and sent to the production floor.
- Receipts – incoming items are inspected against easily retrievable release specifications before being received into inventory. Once a material passes its inspection, it is automatically received and assigned an internal lot number for identification and tracking purposes. Finally labels are printed with barcodes to that material can be scanned later when issued to the production floor.
- Transaction Records – there is complete tracability to the lot level of all materials that move through the process. This includes the incoming receipt, any inventory transfers, issuance to production, or adjustments for any other reason. Every transaction includes details about the item, the lot number, the personnel involved, and the reason for the transaction. By having this history, it is very easy to identify the source of any discrepancies during your inventory cycle counts.
- Planning – with all the data and functionality included in this system, planning becomes a breeze. Customized reports alert you to when your raw materials will be depleted and suggest re-order quantities. Determine your actual cost of goods based on the materials issued for your production processes.
With this system, the production facility was able to operate much more efficiently while almost effortlessly recording data while the inventory transactions were performed. They were able to realize these immediate benefits:
- Automated process flow for the selection of raw materials to be kitted for scheduled processes. Early notification if any material is in short supply.
- Enter a material lot number only once upon receipt. Superior control of the material by using lot status assignments to limit the transactions that can be performed.
- Emailed notification to production team when assembled kits are ready.
- Tracking consumption of material for any process during any time period. Complete traceability from receipt to consumption.
- Barcode scanning means faster and more accurate recording of data.