Catalent Pharma Solutions and TraceLink (Woburn, MA) have announced that Catalent is adopting TraceLink’s outsourced manufacturing solution for supply chain management with its life sciences customers.
Using the TraceLink visibility platform with the Predictable Supply Chain Suite of applications, partners share web resources for processes such as production tracking and inventory management. Users at various levels of a company can log in to create a shared workspace for managing data with virtual teams.
“Our relationship with Catalent extends across all of their business units. We are providing an integrated fabric which Catalent will use to collaborate with their customer base and drive adoption of the TraceLink solution,’ says Shabbir Dahod, president and ceo.
In designing the cloud computing solution, TraceLink has worked closely with life sciences companies and contract manufacturers, Dahod says.
“Life sciences companies are moving at a very rapid pace to outsourced manufacturing. Three out of four products launched at some companies are manufactured and packaged by their outsourced partners.
“There is strategic value on both sides. Catalent can deliver more value to its customers, and their customers can improve their financial performance through collaborative business processes,” Dahod says.
The solution, Dahod says, is a fundamentally different model from traditional supply chain applications. These involve point-to-point business-to-business links, or hub and spoke models. In these, a company creates a portal to make its systems available to partners for integrating their systems.
“The TraceLink visibility and collaboration platform creates a common connection point where parties have a shared set of business processes and application schema that they can execute with each other. This facilitates a much more rapid level of integration,” Dahod says.
The solution includes applications for production tracking, inventory monitoring, and quality review.
“There is a lot of opportunity for sharing forecast information in a more seamless manner. We will be looking to define new strategic objectives and business processes for driving joint value between partners,” Dahod adds.
Users at different levels and departments create a process link or work space and invite partners to join for a particular application or applications. Data is integrated across multiple applications.
“A user will initiate a production order based on a purchase order that both companies have agreed to execute. If they are using the inventory monitoring process module, the inventory generated is related to the executed purchase order,” says Brian Daleiden, vp marketing and online sales.
“Departments will want to work differently and share different information. You can break down at the department level the kind of information you share very simply right off the top.
“The solution helps build shared visibility and business collaboration across the entire span of outsourced manufacturing, from purchase order creation and production forecasting, through to final product packaging,” Daleiden says.
Dahod and Daleiden are among the original founders of SuppyScape Corp, whose products include the e-pedigree chain of custody solution. Founded last year, TraceLink then acquired SupplyScape and its technologies and products.
“SupplyScape addresses track and trace from the point of manufacturing to product dispensation. Our customers were asking if we could provide the same sort of visibility on their upstream manufacturing networks,” says Daleiden.
“So you can have a shared view from API and initial raw material supply through the whole manufacturing process, and out into the distribution process,” he adds.
