Case Study:
Pharmaceutical PI Sheet Shop Floor Execution
Problem:
A large pharmaceutical manufacturer acquired a drug manufacturing site (bulk through packaging), and needed to replace the existing PI sheet design for the site and execute automated warehouse integration. The current design was robust, and drove significant SAP business logic that was connected to tank farms and scales via the Plant Connector. It also drove warehouse movements, and tracked material time out of refrigeration.
However, it also had dozens of one-off defect fixes, changes, and errors, and required significant back-end maintenance. Additionally, the way the PI sheet was developed meant that troubleshooting was challenging, because many of the standard data errors resulted in short dumps that made it difficult to decipher the true root cause.
Solution:
The new PI sheet program needed to drive the manufacturing, quality, inventory, and SOP protocols of the acquiring company, while still supporting the existing functionality needs of the legacy company. Because of the specialized nature of the project and the tight timeline to execute its migration, Endeavor was contracted to rapidly revamp the backend and frontend design of the PI sheets. In order to simply maintain the parameters within the X-steps, a template design of configuration tables was created and a modular approach to building the PI sheets was adopted. This enabled rapid sequencing and changing of screen views, and the migration was successfully completed.
Benefit:
The new PI sheet design dramatically streamlined the process and maintenance of it, allowing changes and additions to be made with ease and efficiency in current and future sites. It regulated manufacturing processes in SAP (bulk, fill, packaging, sub-lots, etc.) by using a framework that allowed for building blocks to be reused.
The new functionality offered dramatic usability improvements over standard SAP, including doing calculations, reading scales, auto inventory adjustments, automated warehouse integration, and batch record approvals. The modular approach Endeavor took also allowed the manufacturing company to reuse key functionalities at other sites. This provided significant time, accuracy, and functional improvements with considerably less backend maintenance.