FDA fortitude: Elan unveils new MES platform dedicated to life-sciences industry

Elan Software Systems , a manufacturing execution system (MES) vendor with a customer portfolio including Baxter, Takeda, sanofi aventis, Rochas, and Yves Rocher, has released XFP 5.0, the latest version of its flagship MES platform dedicated to FDA-regulated industries.The new version offers more than 100 feature enhancements, an interactive interface, and a path toward service-oriented architecture (SOA).Aligned with Web 2.0 concepts, Elan Software used Rich Faces and Ajax technologies to build a new XFP V5.0 Web interface, the key objective being to provide users with increased ease, responsiveness, and interactivity when using the MES solution. The Web interface is so far solely dedicated to the administration of the MES platform. Users can perform functions such as organizing information display, hiding information, and customizing the design through CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), with no programming being required.The XFP-MES platform is said to enable production visibility and control throughout the enterprise by optimizing the production cycle, spanning raw material delivery to end product shipment in compliance with 21CFR part 11 and ISA 88/95. It also promotes paperless manufacturing, giving life science manufacturers advanced modules for warehousing, weighing and dispensing, work instructions, electronic batch record, and quality control right through to packaging and shipping.Any new version at Elan Software has a primary objective to continuously improve quality management within the manufacturing units. XFP V5.0 provides key functionality that simplifies and secures both the operators’ daily tasks as well as the quality assurance mission.“Our product philosophy is based on three axis: the speed of deployment, the ease of process modeling, and the interactivity of the interface dedicated to operators,” says Richard Lasjunies, R&D director, Elan Software. “The new version of XFP is aligned with our product philosophy and guarantees our customers time and cost savings, as well as fast adoption by operators. These are the critical success factors of any MES deployment in a plant.”