As the person responsible for process manufacturing at IFS, I often get asked whether IFS Applications is certified for a particular standard or legislation.

It's a valid question as process manufacturers are under constant pressure from authorities and customers to comply with various quality standards or industry-specific legislation.

It may be HACCP for food and beverage, FDA for pharmaceuticals, or REACH in chemicals.

My response to this question is always this:

It's not your ERP system as such that is certified for a particular regulation.

Instead, it's the processes and documentation you as a company establish that will get you approved.

IFS has been selling and implementing ERP to process manufacturers for 25 years. We have hundreds of customers who comply with and certify for various quality standards and legislations.

To make it easy for process manufacturers to become compliant, we offer a number of components in IFS Applications that will certainly help:

* The Quality Management component to define control plans, perform analysis and track results using Statistic Process Control (SPC). All integrated out of the box with the manufacturing warehousing and procurement processes for seamless transition from specification to analysis and follow-up.

* The Quality Assurance component that will support the entire compliance process from building the compliance plan, perform audits, non-conformance reporting and corrective and preventive actions. Available on mobile technology through IFS Audit Companion and IFS Non Conformance Reporter.
    
* Document Management allows you to safely store important documentation such as certificates, material safety data sheets, safety instructions and drawings. The solution also manages the approval process and revision handling for critical documentation. The documents are attached to the relevant business objects such as products or assets. Documents and other media such as pictures can be easily viewed in relation to the relevant business process, for example by the shop floor operator or in the warehouse.

* Failure Mode and Effect Analysis to provide a structured approach to quality in the design process. Each potential failure in the design is documented and the overall risk of failure calculated.

* Full up and downstream batch and serial traceability through all levels of the bill of material as well as across the supply chain.

* Calculation of the environmental footprint throughout the product's lifecycle. The solution allows you to calculate and declare any environmental impact as part of the manufacturing, transportation, usage or decommissioning of the product.

ECO-Footprint calculation in IFS Applications

All these components are an integral part of IFS Applications and built on a single technology.

For you as a user, this gives you three important advantages:

1. It will allow you to get rid of costly, often badly integrated third-party or in-house solutions.
    
2. Having this as an integral part of your ERP solution will offer a ‘single version of the truth' accessible to everyone.
    
3. Over the long term, new technologies and innovations – mobile ERP, for example – will evolve. Being part of the ERP platform translates into being able to benefit from these innovations by default and without introducing additional cost or complexity.

I wrote a white paper recently that expands on these concepts and will help you understand precisely how IFS Applications will support your compliance efforts.

It's available now on free download. If you do read it, let me know if it does help you. And of course, I'll be more than happy to answer any questions you have – leave a comment here if you'd like to or contact me directly.

Download white paper: Using ERP for Process Manufacturing Quality Management