Genea gives birth to new baby, new system

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Published on the 10/12/2014 | Written by Infor

AT A GLANCE

Genea

INDUSTRY

IVF and Medical equipment

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

Establish a foundation system to support a new manufacturing, warehouse and distribution business
in a strict compliance regime.

SOLUTION

Infor Syteline implemented by EMDA

THE BENEFITS

Rapid implementation
Pre-established industry templates
In-built quality control systems
Template for future growth in manufacturing

FOR MORE INFORMATION

INFOR
W: INFOR
T: +61 2 9021 7100

PARTNER CONTACT

EMDA
W: EMDA
T: +64 9 921 6600 or
T: +64 3 343 0023
E: info@emda.co.nz

The Australian IVF group spawned a new clinical supplies business that needed new system capabilities, and needed them fast…

Automated vitrification and embryology aren’t terms you come across every day, but when it comes to making babies the hard way, they are key tools in the science of successful in-vitro fertilisation. Genea is one of Australia’s leading IVF and genetic testing clinical providers, boasting industry leading success rates with its clients achieving conception rates 40 percent above the Australian and New Zealand industry average. That sort of success doesn’t come without knowing a thing or two about running IVF labs, and the equipment and processes that come with them.

A new baby
That depth of knowledge led Genea to set up Genea Biomedx as a supplier of IVF technology to the wider industry both in A/NZ and further afield. The subsidiary has been created as an outlet for Genea’s specialist tools and techniques that have come out of the long running investment in R&D behind Genea’s high clinical results with its IVF birth rates.

Genea has been in the fertility treatment game since pioneering the technology in the 1980s and is a private, unlisted company owned by its employees and associated fertility specialists.

But running fertility clinics is a very different business to designing, manufacturing and distributing medical supplies and equipment, so Genea quickly recognised that it needed a more specialised system to handle the requirements of the new business.

With strong plans to expand the business internationally, and with many of the business processes to be developed off the back of the new software system, the company needed an ERP to be put in place quickly. Infor’s Syteline was chosen and an aggressive project timeline was forced by the demands of the new business.

“Early on in the establishment of Genea Biomedx, we realised a quality ERP system was crucial to the establishment and ongoing success of the business. With our short time frames before going to market, we required a solution to be implemented straight away and Infor provided this. The rollout was seamless and now we have an established program for the future which can also be rolled out in overseas markets,” Peter Nevin, CIO, Genea said.

The key to partnering with Infor was the ability to fast-track the rollout of the software from a typical 12-18 month-plus timeframe down to just four months. A prime factor in the selection of Syteline was that it comes set up for micro-verticals using a number of in-built configuration templates, so the functional fit and ability to roll out with minimal modification ensured the tight timeframes were met.

Infor partner EMDA took a lead consulting role in the implementation. EMDA CEO Keith Jessop commented that although the timeframe was challenging, the culture within Genea enabled a nimble project environment to be established. “The organisation from the top down had fully embraced the approach for the new solution. The openness to accepting the pre-configured processes made a huge difference in containing the scope and avoiding costly modifications,” he said. Jessop reinforced that the approach Infor is taking with built-in processes designed for specific industry verticals helped accelerate delivery.

“The rollout was seamless and now we have an established program for the future which can also be rolled out in overseas markets.”
Peter Nevin, CIO, Genea

“Not only does it save us setup time, it also packages up best practice learnings across many clients in that vertical,” said Jessop.

Initially, the company is focusing on manufacturing three main products. Automated vitrification equipment (controlling where the rubber meets the road, so to speak), smart embryo incubation pods that come with integrated time lapse imaging to track cell replication, and production of the embryo culture medium itself.

Biomedx manufacturing capacity is provided through a third party facility in Melbourne, a plant in Sydney and it is currently setting up another major facility in Sandwich in the U.K.

Genea’s ERP system needed to be easy to roll out to support rapid growth, provide scalability and the ability to work across multiple global markets. As a web-based solution that was developed with the complex sourcing and sales needs of global manufacturers, Syteline fitted the bill on that front too.

“The challenge was to find a web-based system that would support bills of materials that includes liquids and chemical formulas and the complexity that comes with managing the ordering and servicing of hard, physical items such as medical instruments,” said Nevin.

Not least in Genea’s considerations was the need to meet stringent compliance requirements of the industry with important regulations surrounding quality control and quality accreditation. Infor’s ‘Quality Control System’ within Syteline documents all the manufacturing processes and the way materials are sourced, right through to the finished product, which lowered the compliance hurdle for the new company.

The capabilities that come with the new solution have meant that Nevin is now planning for the replacement of the clinical system with Syteline so the whole business is consolidated onto just one core system.