How Technology Can Streamline Inventory Management in the Pharmaceutical Industry

With the rapid changes in the business environment, companies have to supply high-quality products, deliver quick responses, and make their dynamic competencies better. Particularly, the pharmaceutical industry is facing challenges that they have not seen in the past. Businesses with stock outs suffer a loss of revenue, market share, and customer satisfaction. But, pharmaceutical stock-outs could lead to extreme wellbeing complexions. Implementing technology is significant for pharmaceutical companies to guarantee that they don’t encounter stock-outs and maintain all government enactment.

Tracking and managing your inventory can feel secondary to the real work of production and distribution, but all of these tasks impact one another. As goods are added and moved, stock levels change, items are taken from their usual place, and medicines near their expiration dates, so it’s essential to know the status of every product in your inventory at all times.

Here are a few common issues companies face with manual inventory management:

• Manual methods like paper files, orders, and sales by hand, searching the warehouse for products that are not there are a few that waste time and decrease productivity for your team.
• When relying on employees to make manual updates, errors are common, such as incorrect data entries, adding the same products twice, and more.
• With manual methods, quantities are often out-of-date, and information isn’t shared across departments, which can cause costly delays.
• With manual tracking, you may order more products, not knowing that you already have. Conversely, if you recognize too late that you don’t have a good that you need, you may have to pay fees for rush delivery, missed shipments, or production delays.
• Without real-time tracking, you can’t find and trace the chemicals and safety information you need in the event of an incident. Also, you may face steep penalties and endanger public health.

The following functions offered by the inventory management system helps you manage your inventory effectively:

Digital Order Management: The solution streamlines inventory movements from production, purchasing, shipping, and warehouse transfers, so you’ll know exactly where everything is right when you need it. Barcode scanners make it easy to manage inventory transactions, from receiving a purchased raw material to shipping the finished product.

Demand Planning and Forecasting: Advanced scheduling tools simplify purchasing and production decisions by gathering historical information, material needs, and available inventory. The system helps you forecast sales for made-to-order and seasonal inventory, automatically triggers purchase orders and calculate lead times for tailor-made items, and facilitates just-in-time ordering, so you’ll never exceed your quantities or come up short.

Real-time Inventory Control: Barcode scanning enters goods directly into your inventory list, enabling exact, real-time quantities across all locations and departments. An automated system will also offer tools for expiration-date tracking, first-in, first-out (FIFO) inventory costing, and details for all inventory transactions.

Cost Tracking: The software offers tools for tracking complex material costs; converting units of measure and packaging; tracking batch numbers and expiration dates; and accessing real-time pricing information in an industry where prices are constantly fluctuating.

Compliance Management: The system offers specialized functionality to help you meet regulatory compliance requirements. It enables you to gather, organize and report information for OSHA, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), and other regulatory bodies.

Automated systems offer many benefits, including:

• No more searching through warehouse shelves or entering in data; your inventory gets automatically updated anytime a product is received, used, relocated or disposed.
• Inventory updates happen in real-time, rather than waiting for someone to update the list manually.
• The system will easily integrate and streamline functions across departments, including inventory, production, distribution, and pricing.
• The solution will help you stay compliant with safety and reporting requirements around the world.
• Employees and management can access inventory, safety, quality, sales, and financial information from anywhere, anytime.
• Eliminates accidental double-orders, unnecessary disposals, and inaccurate expiration dates so you can optimize ordering, streamline production and reduce the chances of non-compliance fees.
• With precise, real-time data and advanced planning, forecasting and budgeting tools, you can make smarter decisions for the entire organization.

Bottom Line

An online procurement system like SutiProcure offers advanced inventory control and helps pharmaceutical companies easily manage various products, batches, SKU’s, prices with different expiry dates. The cloud-based software provides real-time visibility into inventory, with anywhere, anytime access to critical information. It offers a range of procurement functions in one place, streamlining processes and information across your company.