Serialization Data Archiving for Biotest Pharmaceuticals
About the Customer
Biotest is a developer of plasma proteins and biological drugs with more than 2,200 employees worldwide. For patients with serious and often chronic diseases, Biotest provides targeted treatment, which generally enables them to lead normal lives. Their products are primarily used in the therapeutic areas of clinical immunology, hematology and intensive care medicine. With a value-added drug lifecycle that starts with pre-clinical and clinical development and ends with worldwide distribution, Biotest develops and markets immunoglobulins, coagulation factors and albumin – all based on human blood plasma.
Project Summary
Archiving is the process of cleaning a database on a regular basis. In serialization processes, the amount of captured data can increase significantly over a few years. Biotest wanted to take a proactive approach to serialization data archiving that would ensure high system performance and longevity, but needed the support of a transformation partner with a technical serialization skillset, SAP expertise and pharmaceutical industry experience. Engineering Industries eXcellence answered the call, and now the pharmaceutical developer is saving costs and ensuring data integrity is maintained.
Project Activities
- Implemented an archiving process for SAP Advanced Track & Trace for Pharmaceuticals (SAP ATTP)
- Rearranged serial management by breaking down serial number sequences into smaller ranges to avoid a ripple effect
- Freed up more than 20% of space within the serialization repository
- Ensured continued performance of serialization system and connected production of serialized medicines
- Planned automated archiving for SAP ATTP in 2024
Business Drivers
- Improve speed and performance of SAP ATTP
- Stabilize serialization by proactively introducing an archiving process
- Minimize the database size by restructuring serial number management
- Avoid costs of slow performance and production stops as serial numbers are connected to packaging lines
- Maintain data integrity with expert archiving
More About the Project
In Biotest’s day-to-day serialization processes, a large amount of data is captured, so over time the size of the main serialization database can grow exponentially. Biotest had accumulated a vast amount of serialization data after 5 years of running their tracking and tracing system, but operations were still running smoothly due to their lean database structure. Nonetheless, the pharmaceutical developer realized that introducing the process of archiving-on-time was the best preventive tool for avoiding possible issues and keeping their SAP ATTP system maintained and operational. Without it, they may have later encountered serialization performance issues due to the large amount of objects in the active database, leading to serious production delays.
Although Biotest had the foresight to identify a proactive solution for serialization data archiving, they lacked the technical skillset and implementation expertise required for a successful launch. That is why they called on Engineering Industries eXcellence, their longtime serialization partner and SAP specialist, to support their digital transformation journey. Our team of tracking and tracing experts implemented a custom archiving system within SAP ATTP to maintain high performance while making Biotest’s range of serial numbers easier to track, group and archive. Instead of one large series that continues to build on itself, the system can now be easily audited, and the numbers can be consumed every one to two years. In doing so there is very little disruption in the serialization of products and products are labeled accurately and safely.
Engineering’s Advantage
As a longstanding partner of SAP and an established system integrator specializing in tracking and tracing systems for the Pharmaceutical & Life Sciences industry, Engineering Industries eXcellence was the ideal strategic partner for implementing an archiving process within SAP ATTP. Our experts have a long history of collaboration with Biotest, including the implementation of SAP ATTP as their serialization repository. Biotest selected Engineering IndX due to our comprehensive and fully compliant service offering and our history of successful tracking and tracing projects. Our experts hold the knowledge and capabilities to ensure compliance with various country-specific regulations, including the EU-FMD. We continue to support Biotest on their digital transformation journey to face the future of pharmaceuticals with a clear path forward.
