Pharmore Ingredients is a high-quality dietary supplement and food ingredient company based in the United States. Founded by Gary Jepson in 2001, Pharmore imports ingredients manufactured overseas and performs rigorous quality control testing on these ingredients to sell to human and animal food manufacturers in the US.
The company is a member of the Council for Responsible Nutrition and is consistently recognized as one of the best nutritional supplement and ingredient suppliers in the country. Pharmore was awarded MVP Supplier of the Year by the National Animal Supplement Council (NASC) in 2011, 2016, 2017, and 2018.
Pharmore supplies 5 of the top 10 dietary supplement companies in the USA and the majority of the top 25. They consistently score 95-100% on customer service score cards evaluating performance on pricing, on time delivery, quality acceptance rate, shipment conformance, and post-sale delivery and support.
“Don’t limit yourself to the functions of today—We chose Odoo to allow us to grow. You can make it do whatever you need – We wanted freedom and flexibility.”
Mellisa Mack, Pharmore Ingredients
Vice President of Operations
Situation
By growing strategic relationships with overseas ingredient manufacturers and US food manufacturers, Pharmore has carved out a significant piece of the nutritional supplement market for humans and animals. Their backend systems are critical players in lot traceability and Certificate of Analysis—from accounting to product purity verification—accuracy and flexibility are non-negotiable. As business grew, so did the complexity of their old system. It got the point that the system’s frailty was too much to maintain.
Heath Jepson, Director of IT, recognized the cost of maintaining an older SAGE MAS 500 system. Pharmore had nursed this system along for a number of years, but it was long past end of life with SAGE.
Melissa Mack, VP of Operations had observed a lot of operational processes in ordering, storage, and sales and fulfillment that required manual operations and large paper trails. She felt that the anticipated growth required a stronger system. Pharmore needed a system that they could trust as the central nervous system of their business. Heath researched open source code solutions and discovered Odoo. They contracted Open Source Integrators (OSI) to guide them through transitioning systems and together, they identified five goals for the system.
Goals for New Open Source ERP System
- Automate and streamline processes to increase productivity
- Reduce paperwork
- Centralize documentation
- Utilize CRM capabilities
- Flexibility
- Improved Certificate of Analysis
Approach
Pharmore Ingredients selected Odoo because they needed an ERP system that would give them the freedom to strategically alter their system—at the source code level. They hired OSI to help implement their new system using a 4-step integration process.
“Your whole team asked the questions that needed to be asked. OSI proactively drew out questions that we hadn’t considered, and helped us move forward efficiently.”
Mellisa Mack, Pharemore Ingredients
Vice President of Operations
Process
Pharmore engaged in a thorough vetting of a replacement system for MAS 500. For Heath, the power of an Open Source system that gave Pharmore freedom and flexibility had a huge allure. He didn’t want to be locked into a proprietary system, with limitations that had not yet been discovered.
Pharmore engaged with OSI to thoroughly study the fit and gaps of Odoo as a leading candidate for replacement. During this phase, OSI was able to determine that over 80% of the requirements could be met by configuration or using existing modules from the large Odoo community.
Pharmore’s unique competitive advantage is in the management of safety, quality, purity and traceability of their products. Pharmore’s values and promise directed the development of customization in order to ensure that these aspects of quality are built into the Odoo system throughout the lifecycle.
“We aren’t limited by the constraints of proprietary coded software anymore. We’ve built a system that works for us and we have the freedom and flexibility to grow as we work with more customers.”
Gary Jepson, Pharemore Ingredients Founder
Results
Pharmore Ingredients built a dynamic, integrated system that gives them the flexibility and power they need to maintain the success of their business. The pivotal factor in the impressive outcome of their ERP project was the outstanding team that led the implementation; Melissa Mack, VP of Operations, and Heath. Their exceptional preparation enabled them to preempt challenges by innovating with the OSI team. Pharmore had a 30% increase in efficiency in some business functions and a 70% decrease in printed pages.
Pharmore’s team was significantly involved in executing the implementation plan. Heath and Melissa’s hard work was instrumental in staying within budget and schedule parameters throughout the project. Odoo’s ease of implementation delivered quick wins, and easy acceptance and use. Pharmore is no longer at risk, due to an unstable, unsupported legacy system, and is prepared to make use of Odoo for many years to come. The relationship between Pharmore and OSI is strong, candid, and based on trust and friendship. Working together, Pharmore is ready to continue their growth, maintaining their reputation for quality, safety and compliance.
Pharmore Ingredients’ Return-On- Investment includes:
- Automated and streamline processes to increase productivity
- Reduced paperwork
- Centralized documentation
- Utilized CRM capabilities
