The main issues which are so critical in the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry include accuracy, capacity, and economization. Raghavendra Engineering Industries which is a leading manufacturer of pharma equipments and isolators like many other fast-growing companies in this field was exposed to many cardinal issues. In order to overcome these challenges while also increasing efficiency in their operations they implemented Odoo which is an all-in-one ERP software. The paper aims to explain the way the company, Raghavendra Engineering, scaled its production processes and enhanced its business production with the help of Odoo.
Raghavendra Engineering Industries is an Indian based company which is dedicated in the production of pharmaceutical machinery and isolator systems. The products that are offered by the company include essential manufacturing and research goods in the pharma industry which must be of good quality and meet set legal requirements. All these changes posed problems for Raghavendra Engineering as their customers demanded more and more of their products: they realized that they were in urgent need of a more complex system that would allow them to grow.
Before implementing Odoo, Raghavendra Engineering faced several challenges that limited their scalability and operational efficiency. These challenges included:
Fragmented Processes: Departments in the company were more or less independent and worked in completely different ways with different models for selling, production, stock, and finances. Impelled by this lack of integration there were compromises in time, confusion and other cases of disorganization virtually in all the processes.
Manual Data Entry: Informatively, Raghavendra continued to perform a lot of manual keying in data and this was time consuming and more so prone to many mistakes.
Limited Scalability: The company’s existing system lacks the ability to handle more business that is fast growing in the industry. For this reason, their capacity to meet production targets was limited.
Inaccurate Inventory Management: One major area where improvements could be made had to do with the real-time stock management. There were such issues concerning excessive or inadequate stocks in the company which resulted to supply chain hitches and increased holding cost.
Compliance and Traceability: In the pharmaceutical equipment industry, the various guidelines such as GMP and other regulators’ rules should be followed. Due to the absence of a proper and integrated system, there is some challenge in achieving perfection on the traceability aspect of production processes and material.
Raghavendra Engineering considered a number of ERP systems in order to select the one that offers more flexibility, scalability and modularity, which was Odoo. We used Odoo which is a user-friendly open-source application that provides a broad spectrum of applications ranging from CRM, accounting, HRM and other subcategories that we can adopt and alter to fit our manufacturing business such as Raghavendra Engineering.
Comprehensive Functionality: Manufacturing, inventory, sale, accounting and CRM are integrated solutions offered by Odoo that enable Raghavendra Engineering to come up with a centralized solution.
Scalability: Manufacturing, inventory, sale, accounting and CRM are integrated solutions offered by Odoo that enable Raghavendra Engineering to come up with a centralized solution.
Ease of Use: Raghavendra Engineering’s team was able to quickly enroll to the new Odoo because it is not as complicated as other ERP systems require users to undergo through training for them to be able to understand how to use the software.
Cost-Effectiveness: While evaluating the options available for ERP implementation, one noticed that Odoo was less costly than its competitors in terms of implementation and maintenance.
The whole process of Odoo integration at Raghavendra Engineering was performed in phases so that disruptions are eliminated, and adaptation is easy. The implementation was conducted under the supervision of an Odoo partner who is a source of expert advice that helps to orient the company’s system.
The first strategy that was employed in this planning and control process for Raghavendra Engineering was holding an assessment of the company’s operations. This involved a process of understanding what the company was struggling with, mapping out the company’s processes and to know which of the Odoo modules would serve the company best.
Thanks to the modularity of Odoo, customization was easily possible to a very large extent. The implementation team set up the system according to the needs of Raghavendra Engineering so that it should support the complex manufacturing processes, stocks and sales functions.
The third important stage was data transformation from the company’s previous systems to Odoo. This included moving customer details, supplier details, stock details and other data kept by the company; while changing the executive management team, IT personnel ensured that all these details were not lost in the process.
The integration of Odoo requires employee training at the company to capture the flow of the new software. The Odoo partner offered the basic training sessions for the employees and managers of each department, and having control over the system became simple and efficient for the representatives of the company.
The Odoo ERP was launched after the system was set up and the staff was ready to use it. Follow-on help was availed in order to solve the problems identified during the initial usage of the new system.
Raghavendra Engineering implemented several Odoo modules that played a critical role in improving their operations. The following modules were essential for scaling their production and streamlining their processes:
The Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP) module which was one of the key enabling technologies was instrumental in the expansion of Raghavendra Engineering’s production. Integrated in this module enabled the efficient Automation of production workflows, scheduling of tasks, and work orders. It also gave information on production capability in real time thus enabling them to satisfy higher levels of demand.
Using Odoo’s Inventory module Raghavendra Engineering could track the motion of inventory in actual-time. Some of the features of this module included automatic replenishment, stock forecasting and tracking of raw materials and finished goods, which prevented stock out and over stocking in the company.
Concretely, the sales module simplified sales activities and effectively helped the company to manage orders and interact with customers. It also offered helpful information for understanding the sales performance rate as a result facilitating the team’s choice throughout the module.
The Accounting module has made the handling of finance in the company, Raghavendra Engineering easier. We were able to automate areas such as invoicing, payments and financial reports; all of which led to better standards.
This is made even more important by the increased need to adhere to strict quality standards in most of the pharma products in the market. Picking on the Quality Control module of Odoo, Raghavendra Engineering was in a position to uphold checks on the quality of their equipment before they could be shipped to the market.
The Student Relationship Management (SRM) module was useful for effective customer communication and the company used the CRM module. It offered an efficient, unified system for following potential customers and handling those chances, and also enhancing the quality of the consumer relations.
In the course of this study, it was seen that, after successful installation of Odoo, Raghavendra Engineering had observed major enhancements in various functional areas of business operations. Some of the key results included:Some of the key results included:
Moreover, the layouts of production lines in the company have been made more fluent through the use of automated manufacturing processes as well as better production planning to increase production throughput. This not only helped Raghavendra Engineering to supplement the increasing level of demand but without straining the quality or the delivery period.
The real-time tracking of inventory management meant that the company experienced a decrease in stock-out differences, a decrease in excess stocks and in general, the enhancement of their supply chain. The most useful aspect of the automated replenishment was the availability of the raw materials in an organized manner thus preventing production downtimes.
The Sales module proved to be helpful in improving the speeds of delivering orders from the various departments and thus increasing customer satisfaction. The other benefit that was realized from the CRM module was improving relations with clients.
Quality Control and the MRP modules being interlinked contributed to the achievement of traceability of the processes at Raghavendra Engineering. This helped not only in regard to compliance with the various regulations in the industry but also for company gaining a good reputation of offering reliable and high-quality equipment.
This helped the company to cut down on labor costs which would have previously been used to perform routine activities errantly. That is why the functionality and scalability of Odoo also helped Raghavendra Engineering to expand the company without facing new overhead costs.
Conclusion
Therefore, by using the case study of Raghavendra Engineering Industries, a manufacturing company, it will demonstrate how implementing Odoo can assist the company to counter some of the operational issues and expand on the production aspect. Thus, due to effective use of Odoo integrated modules within the framework of the used company, it was possible to better organize its processes, eliminate non-essential deviations from the norms and standards, as well as achieve higher efficiency. The success story of Raghavendra Engineering with the help of Odoo explained the success story of many manufacturers who make effective changes in their business.
