Sage 100

Have a client that is a start up pharmaceutical company. They currently have one product that is outsourced. They have made inquires about MAS manufacturing. I am not sure whether to turn and run or find out what their needs actually are. I expect that good manuafacturing practices are critical as well as traceability. Does anyone have a pharma type company using MAS manufacturing. I am thinking JobOps may do the deed. Thanks in advance for sharing.

I've used Sage 100 with about 5 different pharmaceutical type companies. Some direct some virtual. They need lot and/or serial tracking, you'll need to worry about what are called pedigrees, which are traceability of materials to origin. It's challenging since they usually have decimal issues too, but I love a challenge.

I'm short of mfg customers however decimal precision may come into play if the company is using very small quantities to track items. Lot/Serial tracking would probably also be crucial. Some of this - the lot/serial - you can work around with UDFs however I'm usually pretty cautious and upfront with the customer as to the expandability of Sage 100 ERP for MFG. TL;DR: Light use of Sage MFG is usually an option for existing happy Sage 100 ERP customer; an ok option if you're deeply embedded with Job Ops and probably not a solution for a new prospect.

Lot/serial is crucial, especially if there is a recall. I had a chance to test this once (lot trace on a recall) and was able to provide full destination info. to gov standards in less than 20 minutes. The small quantities may not be an issue for decimal precision if you use the u/m conversions.

@MoiraGoggin - am I missing something on the decimal precision? Doesn't Sage chop anything beyond 4 decimal places? Not sure how UM conversion could overcome this but willing to learn if I've had the wrong impression about decimals.

DSD has decimal precision enhancement. I'm not sure if they truly made it six (or so) or if they followed the tried and true by padding the right by stealing from the left side...

To answer @WayneSchulz question - yes decimals are limited but when you're making a batch of pill/tablet/liquid you are not making a single dose, you're making a quantity. So the raw ingredients are purchased in say kilos with standard unit of measure grams and as an ingredient in a bill are a milligram, so if you need a milligram then it's .001 grams which works with the decimal limit and usually does for the bill too since you'll build a quantity.

@JeffSchwenk - I've used the decimal precision enhancement for one of the five pharmas that I worked with. It is a good solution if you run into small patch sizes and/or near microscopic quantities for ingredients. It's not always required but I will attest that it works great. Do note, you give up decimals on the left to expand them on the right.

I have one that makes nutritional supplements. They use WO to manufacture, and decimal precision can be an issue. They also use UOM conversion, as pills are stocked by bottle but raw material is purchased by case/pallet. A WO is usually generated for a 2-3 million pill manufacturing run.They also use a separate Access database to handle compliance issues and traceability, although I'm trying to move as much of that info into MAS as possible. ACSG offers some enhancements for Vendor Lot Traceability and Expiration Control. http://www.acsg.com/food_beverage.html

DSD made it 6 but you lose digits on the other side of the decimal if I remember what Reiter said at MOTM correctly.

This sounds like an X3 candidate to me, specifically for the lot traceability and probably QC.

I have used the 6 decimal precision extended solution at food manufacturers and even for them it is usually not enough accuracy, specifically for bill of material quantities . By the way anyone know why they call it 6 decimal precision and you only get five decimal places?