Enterprise System Partners
MES and Serialization Driven Efficiency

Cost reduction and efficiency improvement is a challenge facing all manufacturing and, “This pressure has become intense in recent years,” opines Liam O’Brien, Managing Director, Enterprise System Partners (ESP). In pharmaceutical manufacturing, where ESP operates, the relative scarcity of blockbuster drugs in the pipeline and pressure on governments to reduce drug costs have increased the focus on efficient manufacturing. The delayed adoption of computerized systems within pharma manufacturing has put them on the back foot as their colleagues in electronics, consumer goods, and the automotive sector have had fully electronic manufacturing environments for years now. ESP expects the rollout of fully paperless electronic manufacturing environments to grow as cost pressures grow. The company, which has been in operation for over 10 years, specializes in Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) and serialization for manufacturing operations within the biopharmaceutical sector.

MES is the most significant system on the plant floor - providing the electronic environment which controls work orders, work flow, process steps, material flow and equipment management. “The key to efficient deployment is knowledge of the business environment and the correct modeling of this environment within the MES and overall landscape,” remarks O’Brien. ESP’s pivotal skill is the development and deployment of these models efficiently, with minimal disturbance to current operations and maximum impact on quality and efficiency. “Our people have developed their careers from the process automation and ERP system layers, which mean we also understand how MES is best integrated with other system layers,” adds O’Brien. This skillset and knowledge base is also required to deliver successful serialization projects which is why the company diversified into this field in 2007. Serialization is the marking and tracking of prescription pharmaceuticals at unit of sale level and is a rapidly developing requirement for all major markets worldwide. “Our team has many years experience in serialization from many sectors. This gives us a distinct advantage in the delivery of serialization solutions,” states O’Brien.

A complete focus on the biopharmaceutical industry gives ESP a clear upper hand when developing and deploying systems for the sector. They are unlike other global IT consultancies that seek to cover many industries and thus have poor understanding of the processes, Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) and Quality Assurance (QA) requirements of the pharmaceutical industry. “Our intimate GMP and QA knowledge, combination of IT/IS and engineering skills and extensive knowledge of the biotechnology and pharmaceutical processes allows us provide a much more effective solution,” comments O’Brien.

Since its inception, ESP has led the way in supporting the emergence of systems that were new to the industry, including the very early paperless manufacturing rollouts. “Our culture of innovation has led us to develop more efficient ways of handling the business layer design and rollout for manufacturing IT systems,” reveals O’Brien. In the case of MES, they have branded a methodology called MBR Factory to support major pharmaceutical manufacturers. The company has performed design and rollout of multi-site MES and serialization solutions for many of the major bio-pharma corporations such as Pfizer, Genzyme and Merck, as well as, many other significant manufacturers on time and within budget. “Our list of successful projects is a long one, and we mostly exceed expectations,” claims O’Brien.

We develop and deploy solutions efficiently, with minimal disturbance to current operations and maximum impact on quality and efficiency

Keeping one step ahead of others, ESP is determined to continue building a global resource capable of delivering state-of-the-art manufacturing IT solutions to the pharmaceutical industry worldwide. “The immediate focus is to expand the MES/MBR Factory and serialization teams to become the top global players in these niches,” announces O’Brien.