The reasons for integrating business systems with the plant include inventory management, the delivery of orders from the ERP to manufacturing, quality monitoring, work status, recipe transfer and asset management. Recently, regulatory control has become part of the mix. ERP systems now manage manufacturing data needed by regulatory bodies.

Unlike most industries in which leading, large manufacturers are the ones that are sharing data between the plant and the enterprise, the pharma industry is widely adopting integration as a way to streamline operations and ensure compliance. The integration is being used to collect plant data, as well as to send ERP data down to the plant. AMR Research Inc., in Boston, offers a breakdown of industry adoption of plant-ERP integration. While most of the data flow is from the plant to the enterprise system, there is also a counter flow from the ERP to the plant.

• 59% of pharma manufacturers now send automated inventory updates from the plant to the ERP system.
• 54% use automated communication of production orders from the ERP system to the manufacturing system.
• 39% use automated quality updates from the manufacturing system to the ERP system.
• 34% are sending automated updates from the plant to the ERP system on work-in-progress.
• 30% synchronize recipes between the ERP and manufacturing systems.
• 24% of plants communicate equipment availability from the plant to the ERP system.

Related Feature - Sending Plant Data to the Enterprise System
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