Apriso Adds Global Trace and Genealogy (G-TAG) Solution for Medical Device Manufacturers

LONG BEACH, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–

Apriso, a leading provider of manufacturing software solutions, today
announced a new extension to its Global
Trace and Genealogy (G-TAG™) software and services solution tailored
to meet the specific industry requirements of Medical Device
manufacturers. Apriso’s new offering enables greater operational
flexibility by delivering timely, contextual manufacturing
intelligence and product genealogy data. This new solution helps to
accelerate compliance initiatives and improve both in-house and supplier
quality performance throughout the life cycle of a product, ultimately
helping to reduce the total cost of quality.

As international and local regulatory and traceability requirements have
become increasingly stringent, the challenge to remain cost effective in
compliance has become more difficult. Medical Device manufacturers must
simultaneously improve responsiveness, increase tracking and performance
measurement, reduce costs and maintain quality while operating under
more complex, global regulatory conditions.

Gartner suggests to medical device manufacturers: “Justify
track-and-trace investments through tangible benefits, such as efficient
compliance, with serialization and authentication requirements, or
enabling inventory management and order fulfillment at downstream
customer locations,” as stated in their “Track and Trace: A
Healthcare Value Chain Pulse Check” report (ID#G00209860), written by
Wayne McDonnell, Hussain Mooraj and Fenella Scott in February 2011.

Apriso’s new G-TAG solution for Medical Device manufacturers provides a
centralized repository and framework for collecting and storing all
product genealogy and traceability data from internal systems and supply
chain partners. This enables better data governance and the
standardization of both structured and unstructured data that allow for
compliance to emerging Track Trace standards, achieve greater
inventory visibility and more accurate order fulfillment, and of course,
drastically improve life cycle management, and adverse event and recall
management. As a result, G-TAG can directly impact two of the most
pressing issues in the industry today: compliance with emerging
regulations, and the costs associated with traditional compliance
measures, which can exceed 30% of Cost of Goods Sold.

Specific capabilities include:

• Supply chain synchronization to better connect those involved
  in analyzing and taking corrective actions on quality issues for more
  timely resolution
• Standardized data in a single repository to more readily
  monitor quality and analysis performance so corrective actions can be
  identified and managed for efficiently
• Global access to electronic device history or batch records,
  offering better insight into managed quality activities and
  manufacturing operations
• Unified communications features to improve collaboration
  between users connected inside the firewall or their trading partners
• Workflow automation between suppliers and internal systems to
  faster contain issues and take corrective actions

Apriso’s G-TAG solution capabilities are derived from Apriso’s FlexNet,
a scalable process-based architecture ideal for medical device
manufacturing. The solution is designed to track genealogy and packaging
hierarchies at a highly granular level, helping to ensure better data
standardization while delivering the many benefits
of a product genealogy solution. G-TAG uniquely synchronizes and
tracks business processes spanning manufacturing, warehouse and quality
operations – both within FlexNet and other third-party applications – on
a global scale to facilitate greater collaboration across business units
and trade partners.

“Medical Device manufacturers can benefit by implementing Apriso’s
new G-TAG solution with a lower cost of compliance and product quality.
These cost reductions can be achieved through more timely visibility and
responsiveness to product quality issues across the product’s life
cycle, including recall management,” said Rick Gallisa, Industry
Director – Life Sciences, Apriso.

About Apriso Corporation

Apriso is a software company dedicated to helping its customers
transform their global manufacturing operations. It does so by enabling
manufacturers to achieve and sustain manufacturing excellence while
adapting quickly and easily to market changes. Apriso’s FlexNet is a BPM
platform-based software solution for global manufacturing operations
management. Apriso supports global continuous improvement by delivering
visibility into, control over and synchronization across manufacturing
and the product supply network. Apriso serves nearly 200 customers in
40+ countries across the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa. Medical
Device customers include Stryker Spine, Trixell, Becton Dickinson,
Terumo Medical, Wright Medical Technologies and Johnson Johnson. Learn
more at: http://www.apriso.com.
Visit our blog at http://www.apriso.com/blog.

Apriso
and FlexNet
are registered trademarks of Apriso Corporation. All other trademarks
and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.