Dales Pharmaceuticals is moving its business
applications onto Oracle E-Business Suite to support growth plans
in the US.
The company, which specialises in contract manufacturing of
pharmaceuticals, selected Oracle E-Business Suite to standardise
and automate business processes such as invoicing and improve
product planning.
As well as creating internal efficiencies by rationalising three
legacy systems, the move to Oracle will help Dales Pharmaceuticals
manage its expansion into Europe, the US and Japan.
In particular, it should help it comply with the rigorous
regulatory requirements of the US Food and Drug Administration
(FDA). Mike Annice, managing director of Dales Pharmaceuticals,
said the firm could comply with FDA regulations with its current
paper-based system, but that would become untenable given the
company's plans for 75% growth over the next five years.
"Oracle will allow us to continue to comply with regulatory
authorities around the world without taking on huge numbers of
employees. It is a project about future cost avoidance as well as
immediate efficiencies," he said.
Dales Pharmaceuticals is rolling out Oracle E-Business Suite and
Oracle Database 10g on Red Hat Linux to replace a Sage finance
system, bespoke AS/400 business management application and
paper-based compliance system.
The system will run on two Dell/Intel servers, which replicate
to two identical servers at a separate site for business
continuity. It is being deployed by Oracle reseller Mi
Services.
Dales Pharmaceuticals opted for Oracle after an evaluation of
four other products. "The system looks like it has been written for
the regulatory requirements for our industry, whereas the others
look like products for the manufacturing industry with add-ons for
our industry," said Annice.
Kirsty Ireland, finance director at Dales Pharmaceuticals, said
the system was just entering the user acceptance phase and would go
live with Oracle Manufacturing and Financials around July. "We saw
the whole project as an opportunity to look at our business
processes and consider which we needed to change," she said.