INTRODUCTION
Solo Laboratories, Inc. (Solo Labs) is a family-owned business that has been formulating, manufacturing and filling personal care products for over 95 years. Since 1927, the company has grown from an early leader in the production of private label lipsticks and rouges into a leading services provider which offers product development, contract manufacturing and turnkey services for a diversified range of personal care products, including shampoos, bodywashes and deodorants.
Solo Labs employs BatchMaster ERP in the cloud to manage manufacturing, sales, purchasing, distribution, and accounting operations in their FDA and ATF registered facility.
SELECTION
Previously to BatchMaster ERP, Solo Labs ran Sage Financials and an old legacy version of BatchMaster for Formulation managed by a third-party consultant. The applications were not integrated, which hindered user productivity in terms of the need for double entry of and extensive searching for essential business data. It came to a point in their growth that management recognized that a single, end to end ERP was needed to provide users with access to real-time, accurate information from all operational areas, allowing them to make more informed decisions, faster.
Teri Patten-Leggett was hired by Solo Labs as their Purchasing Manager, but due to her previous software implementation experience, was assigned the role of the ERP Project Manager. Teri worked with other subject matter expert teams to develop the ERP requirements list, then was a key member of the project team that managed the ERP selection process.
“BatchMaster ERP was selected from a group of ERP vendor solutions, including Acumatica and Sage, primarily due to its comprehensive formulation and compounding capabilities, and its simple conversion of specifications into production batch jobs”, explained Teri Patten-Leggett, Purchasing Manager.
As the Solo Labs project lead during the ERP implementation, Teri offered these tips to future BatchMaster customers who are planning for their software implementation:
- Focus on data conversion and migration in the initial stage of implementation because data drives processes and reporting. In addition, this is the time to cleanse one’s current data, such as formulations, as opposed to going live and correcting these records.
- Ensure everyone has the right reports to run and analyze their processes. Having the right data is key, but how the data is organized and presented in one or more reports makes a difference.
- Get more training! Getting a thorough understanding of the software gives users the means to fine tune their processes. If possible, hold user training sessions on site to get the maximum benefits.
OPERATIONS
In the area of product development, Solo Labs custom formulates a wide variety of products in the health and beauty (HBA) and the household, industrial and institutional (HI&I) industry segments. The company also provides solutions for the topical OTC drug, pet care, and outdoor sports markets. BatchMaster formulation capabilities assist Solo Lab in reproducing, modifying, and improving upon their customer formulas. With BatchMaster ERP, Solo Labs can continually update formulas and introduce new products to embrace the latest ingredient technology.
In accordance with cGMP mandates, Solo Labs tests all chemicals prior to blending to ensure consistency and quality. Being registered with the FDA as a drug-producing establishment, all products developed by Solo Labs or with a customer-supplied formula are manufactured and tested to ensure the highest quality.BatchMaster comprehensive QC & QA capabilities ensure Solo Labs comply with customer requirements and industry regulations.
BatchMaster ERP helps Solo Labs prioritize open sales orders, using their ship by dates, then schedule production jobs based upon hand inventory balances and these commitments. Considering the amount of record updates Solo Lab had to perform using their previous software, users feel that BatchMaster ERP gives them short cuts in performing linked tasks in both the production and order fulfillment processes.
“Batchmaster ERP streamlines our process flows from the beginning to the end. Upper management recognizes this fact and is very happy that we have implemented this solution”, said Teri Patten-Leggett, Purchasing Manager. “For example, having visibility to all the sales orders, processing the order and production jobs, getting orders delivered and invoiced, and taking payments. This process flow has improved immensely. Most importantly, now customer service and sales reps can quickly answer customer questions regarding the status of their orders.”
NEXT STEPS
Solo Labs continues to make improvements to their warehouse to help streamline the physical flow of inventory. Management will evaluate these physical modifications and the software configurations in BatchMaster ERP to ensure that they are working together in unison to maximize system performance.
Solo Labs uses paper documents to execute tasks in the areas of purchase order receiving & put away, production & QC, inventory adjustments & movements, and sales order picking & shipping. Once the processes have been streamlined and users are comfortable with the processes in place, the company will look at how mobile warehousing with barcode scanning can further improve operations.
Today, production batch jobs and purchase orders are manually planned and scheduled. BatchMaster ERP allows users to directly convert a finished good specification or a sales order into a batch job, as well as employ a “time phased” inventory inquiry to manually create batch jobs based upon finished good balances and purchase orders based upon raw material balances. As supply & demand becomes more complex, Solo Labs will evaluate the use of advanced MPS & MRP modules to automate the generation of forecasted batch jobs and purchase orders.
Solo Labs is considering the use of a couple of different leading software packages in the cosmetics industry. Powered by AI and the industry’s most comprehensive database, they have formulation, regulatory compliance, and innovation software used by hundreds of leading cosmetic companies to build safe, compliant, transparent, and effective products. In partnership with Solo Labs and other customers in the cosmetics and personal care industry, BatchMaster Software is investigating an integration between BatchMaster ERP and the software application. Essentially, specifications would be developed and approved in the software application, then downloaded into BatchMaster Formulation for further processing and later conversion into batch production jobs.
