How PCI Pharma Services streamlined CapEx approvals with mobile workflow

PCI needed software that allowed complete visibility on every request, 100 percent compliance, and easy implementation. Nutrient Workflow was able to meet all of those requirements. The ease of use was also unmatched.

Background

PCI Pharma Services(opens in a new tab) is a global leader in drug development services, supporting its customers in each stage of the development and commercialization of drug products. PCI offers services from early-stage drug development, analytical laboratory services, and early-phase clinical studies through large-scale commercial launch and ongoing commercial supply — and it’s growing rapidly. In fact, PCI has acquired several companies in the last few years. While the acquisitions have proven positive for the company, they also began to exacerbate the challenges of capital expenditure approvals for a company that maintains significant year-over-year investment to provide best-in-class technologies for its clients.

The challenge

“Initially, when we were smaller, it was easier to manage capital expenditure (CapEx) requests. We had a paper-based system and a couple of us on the executive team had to decipher the CapEx requests and approve them,” Richardson shared. “But when we grew from 500 employees to a global company of nearly 3,000, the manual method just was not sustainable.”

But that was only one aspect of the issue. Once a CapEx request was approved in the paper-based system, the actual documentation sat with the site that requested it. So when the Finance department came to Richardson asking for information about capital expenditure, he’d have to hunt it down from the location that requested it.

Richardson realized that what he needed was a workflow system that allowed mobile approvals with centralized and secure data storage for all requests so he could be 100 percent audit-compliant at all times.

Why Nutrient Workflow?

Internally, there were some who couldn’t immediately see the value in such a system, suggesting that PCI’s ERP system should be able to support the approval process. Richardson knew better.

He was also convinced Nutrient Workflow’s cloud solution was the right answer for easy implementation, ubiquitous access, and no-headache maintenance.

After some internal dialogue, it was determined that an outside provider would be best positioned to support a software system for capital expenditure approvals. Fortunately, Richardson’s diverse background allowed him to develop a use case for what he wanted to see and how he wanted it to work. A few web searches later, he found several vendors but was impressed with both the capabilities of Nutrient Workflow and the responsiveness he received throughout the process. “That set the tone for my relationship with Nutrient Workflow, and it’s proven prescient,” said Richardson.

Implementation

Richardson initially designed PCI’s CapEx request system so that only the controllers at each site have access to make requests. He chose to do that, in collaboration with the vice president of Finance, specifically for a more controlled launch of the approval system.

“That way, every single entry into our system came directly from a finance person,” Richardson explained. That meant, at least initially, requesters would continue completing a paper form and submitting it to the site controller, who would then enter the request into the system.

However, he plans to expand the “community” of requesters so that, for instance, a director of engineering can submit a request. Initially, he felt PCI needed structure and rigor at the outset to help identify potential changes to the system and ensure Finance signed off on using it.

Richardson designed the first generation of PCI’s CapEx workflow with key data points to capture for each request, including whether the request was customer-funded, whether it involved an IT project, and whether it was a serialization project.

Once the request is submitted, Richardson and any other approving stakeholders now have access to everything about the request 24/7, wherever they may be, so they can make an approval decision. He also has access to reports on the entire CapEx process. Currently, Richardson focuses on four different reports:

• Approved capital at month end
• Capital in process at month end
• Year-to-date approved requests
• Year-to-date in-process approvals

He’ll be adding these reports by PCI’s different sites to show cycle times from request to approval, which will expose bottlenecks in the process.

Results

After 60 days of using Nutrient Workflow, Richardson reports that his internal customers are delighted. As with any system rollout, the biggest concern is always whether people will adopt the software and actually use it. “I had to sell the idea of everyone using a mobile, cloud-based automated workflow system, and I wasn’t sure how it would be received,” he admitted.

Luckily, the rollout went very smoothly. In fact, Richardson shared, “Our CEO approved his very first request from his mobile device.”