Challenges in the pharmaceutical and chemical industry
Pharmaceuticals and chemicals are a large and sensitive industry. As pharmaceutical businesses work with drugs and often hazardous chemicals, they’re under a lot of pressure to operate responsibly.
Additionally, since pharmaceuticals are consumer-oriented goods, there are extra regulations in place to protect the public. To be successful, a pharmaceutical chemical company needs to ensure:
Product quality
In the pharmaceutical industry, product quality is one of the highest concerns, since medication that is not well-produced can have extreme consequences. Your business needs to make sure that the pharmaceuticals they manufacture are safe and produce the advertised effect. If there are any safety concerns or unforeseen adverse effects, you need to recall the product immediately.
To produce a quality product, it’s also important to ensure that they are intuitive for consumer use. This means they come in a convenient shape, they are properly labeled, the dosage is clear and accurate, etc. Make sure you’re successful with regular quality inspections that ensure you don’t accidentally ship a subpar product. It’s a good idea to do these checks during multiple stages of a production process.
Regulatory compliance
The pharmaceutical and chemical industries are heavily regulated, for reasons ranging from drug quality to environmental concerns to hazards in the workplace. Understanding these regulations is an essential part of operating in the pharmaceutical and chemical industry.
Making sure that your products are safe and your facility is run properly according to applicable federal, state, and local guidelines is critical to avoid compliance penalties. These penalties can range from fines to suspensions to business closure, depending on severity.
A functioning supply chain
Pharmaceutical supply chains are complicated because of their variety. They encompass raw materials, manufacturing processes, and distribution systems. Making sure deliveries happen on time and that you receive quality materials is critical to maintaining a production schedule. Before working with a supplier (or even with old suppliers), you can measure their reliability with a supplier audit.
You can protect yourself from delays by ordering extra inventory, though you need to pay attention, since many chemicals have specific shelf lives. When it comes to distributing final products, guard against problems by regularly inspecting delivery vehicles so that unexpected mechanical failures don’t leave you stuck with unsold product.
Environmental responsibility
A lot of the chemicals and substances involved in the pharmaceutical industry are hazardous and need to be handled carefully. Failing to dispose of your excess or chemical waste properly can damage the environment (for example by polluting the surrounding air and water), and is another thing that could lead to fines.
In addition to waste management, keeping an eye on your emissions is a key part of running a functioning pharmaceutical and chemical business. Emissions regulations apply to all kinds of businesses, particularly ones where production uses high amounts of energy. Besides that, lowering emissions where possible is good for your reputation.
Running your pharmaceutical and chemical industry with Lumiform
Monitoring the challenges of a pharmaceutical company would usually involve multiple different mediums and software services. Navigating between them can quickly get out of hand. That’s why an all-in-one solution like Lumiform is useful.
The combination of desktop and mobile app gives you all the tools you need to manage your pharmaceutical chemical company. Use custom or premade inspection checklists to measure everything from energy usage to lab safety and ensure you meet compliance standards.
With the mobile app, you and your team can perform inspections on and offline, so you have flexibility when auditing the different areas of your business. While safety and compliance are two of the most common ways companies use Lumiform, you can also use it to:
- Inspect the quality of finished products and fine-tune your quality management system
- Make sure your suppliers and distributors are reliable with supply chain audits
- Mitigate your environmental impact with a detailed hazardous waste disposal process
Unlike other software platforms, you barely have to train employees before they’re ready to use Lumiform. Downloaded checklists walk inspectors through every step of the process so that they know exactly what they’re responsible for and don’t overlook anything.
When an inspection is completed or an issue is reported, all the information is documented and automatically stored in the cloud, so you’ll have access to it indefinitely. More than that, you’ll receive weekly and monthly analytics that help you visualize business processes and identify potential improvements.