CALIBRATION SOLUTIONS
BEST-IN-CLASS SOLUTION
INDYSOFT
Parker Bioscience ‘filter-out’ the alternatives and choose IndySoft
Employing approximately 58,000 people
globally, Parker Hannifin is the world leader
in Motion and Control technology. The
company’s products and services cover
areas including, aerospace, climate control,
electromechanical, fluid and gas handling,
hydraulics, pneumatics, process control and
filtration.
With lead operations located in Oxnard,
California and Birtley, UK, Parker Bioscience
Engineering and Filtration have over 50
years of experience in the provision of high
quality filtration products and services for
applications within the life sciences, food
and beverage, industrial processing and
microelectronics markets.
The Parker Bioscience Filtration Birtley
facility has recently undergone a multi-
million pound development programme.
This considerable investment has resulted
in the site becoming one of the world’s most
modern manufacturing sites for integrated
bioprocessing solutions.
Essential to the efficient operation of the
Birtley facility is the work of the company’s
Instrument Service Group. The group
provide support by maintaining, testing
and calibrating a wide range of customer
equipment, including filter integrity testing
machines.
Prompted by Parker Hannifin’s philosophy
of pursuing constant improvements, Andrew
Harker of the Instrument Service Group,
recently searched for an effective asset
management software solution that would
streamline the group’s processes, increase
productivity, help in maintaining data integrity
and improve logistics. After considering the
offerings from several potential providers,
the solution was found in IndySoft software.
Andrew Harker explained “The high-quality
filtration systems manufactured by Parker
Bioscience Birtley, are sold throughout
the world. These systems perform critical
operations by accurately monitoring and
validating the performance of our customers’
filtration systems.
“The paper based system we were using to
oversee the recall, processing, calibration,
issuing of relevant certification and the
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PECM Issue 43
The Parker Bioscience
Filtration Birtley facility
has recently undergone
a multi-million pound
development programme
return of our customers filter integrity testing
machines, was only capable of handling our
previously lower volume of work. As our
installed base grew, the resulting increased
workload began to show the limitations of
the paper system.
“Our manual, paper based system involved
the use of document folders, to add, store
and retrieve information. The system was
difficult to use and was prone to occasional
mistakes, for example, the written data
taken as part of our calibration procedures
needed to be typed-up and this could lead
to unwelcome transcription errors. Therefore,
we needed to find a more efficient system
that would speed-up our ‘housekeeping’ and
calibration processes.
“I performed an on-line search for a suitable
software system. After reviewing some of
the available options and realising that they
were not easy to adapt to our particular
needs, and were also relatively difficult
to use, I came across the IndySoft Asset
Management software. IndySoft appeared to
tick all of our boxes, therefore I requested a
demonstration.
“Given that the use of IndySoft would
represent a radical change to the way
the Instrument Service Group operated,
we organised an in-house demonstration
that was performed by the managing
Director of IndySoft Europe, Jake Bishop.
The demonstration was completed in the
presence of our Instrument Service Group
operatives, our senior IT staff and several
other potential company users.