From Paper Trails To Process Excellence, How Century Pharmaceuticals Digitized Operations With eWorkplace Apps

Disconnected Systems

The company was using a combination of three systems to run operations across departments. These included an old database, spreadsheets, and QuickBooks. The data had to be manually entered into the three systems. The quality department had to invest the manual efforts by double-checking the entries across the platforms.

"We had an old database that was originally made in 1995. We had QuickBooks and we had some paper processes, and none of those three systems really talks to each other well. All three had to have the data entered in separately, which took up a lot of manual time and a lot of time double-checking for the quality department, says Nathan Deardroff." He adds, "There was a lot of double entry in all of our systems, including QuickBooks.

The disconnected systems led to extra efforts and made it difficult to maintain a single source of truth. Teams had to extract data from one system, record it manually, and then re-enter it into another, consuming time and increasing the risk of errors. "So we would pull our raw material inventory out of one database, print it out, write it on paper masters, and then at the end of the day, say what the finished good was and put that in QuickBooks. So the inventory systems were not connected and there was a paper trail, Nathan says."

Lack of integration strained the quality department's efforts to verify accuracy, reconcile records, and maintain consistency. "We were tracing and recording and keeping that information and verifying that from our quality department, but the software couldn't talk to each other, and so we ended up having two inventory systems with one paper link between the two, which is very tedious and time-consuming to make sure everything is correct, says Nathan."

Manual and Paper-Based Processes

The manual processes of entering the batch masters, historical records, and QC documentation made the day-to-day workflow cumbersome and slowed down the process. Century pharmaceuticals relied on manual processes, and most of the data were maintained in physical files, creating a cumbersome and time-consuming system. This not only increased the risk of errors due to manual entry but also made it difficult to retrieve and analyze past data efficiently.

"Before Acumatica and using eWorkplace with it, all of our batch masters were just paper and all of our historical data was just paper. We had files and files and files of data stored that way, and the quality control orders were stacked on top of those also in folders for each batch, says Nathan Deardroff."

He adds, "Now, instead of manually putting that into Excel and then doing historical data in Excel, we're doing real-time from Acumatica in the eWorkplace telling us what to produce...It saves us hours." The transformation to a new solution helped them with improved efficiency.

Lack of Traceability

QuickBooks, the old system, made it difficult for the company to trace lots according to its business needs. This led to an inefficient process with a heavy workload. The system could not handle the complexity they needed and required tedious workarounds to track and trace the lots.

"One major issue we have with QuickBooks was that it didn't monitor lots in the way that we would prefer. We had to work around, and we were able to trace lots of both incoming and outgoing, but it really bogged down the system, says Nathan." He adds, "It's not really built for the level of complexity that we needed it for."

On-Premise Hosting

Locally hosted systems made it difficult for the company to run the production line smoothly. They relied on on-site servers, and with such a fragile setup, there was always a risk of losing access to critical data and interrupting operations.

"If we had a power outage or if the server had an update, one or both of our inventory systems might go down, and that could put production at a standstill, Nathan says."

Century Pharmaceuticals Selects eWorkplace Apps Process Manufacturing and Quality Management 

Century Pharmaceuticals was looking for quality and process manufacturing solutions that could manage the complexity of their liquid products. They evaluated NetSuite and Aptean Ross, which were not able to meet their specific business needs. They looked at eWorkplace Apps Quality Management and Process Manufacturing solutions recommended by Acumatica. The eWorkplace Apps solutions were exactly what Century Pharmaceuticals was looking for.

"Our Acumatica team recommended eWorkplace Apps and demoed the basics of how it would all work, and we were blown away, Nathan says." Nathan added, "There's an easy choice to go with Acumatica. Seeing the eWorkplace apps demo, we wouldn't have gone to Acumatica without eWorkplace. It was an integral choice, an integral part of our choice, to have the quality management and production manufacturing modules added on."

"Our decision to go with the Acumatica was solely based on our impression with eWorkplace Apps. We saw the quality management, we saw the process manufacturing modules, and we knew that those were a must for our business needs, Nathan says." He adds, "Acumatica's recommendation of the eWorkplace Apps really is what made us choose Acumatica and eWorkplace Apps, and we've been very happy with it since."

Process Manufacturing and Quality Management Suite for Acumatica are robust solutions developed by eWorkplace Apps to meet the manufacturing and quality requirements of manufacturers and distributors. It is natively built within the Acumatica cloud ERP and has the same database. "On a scale from one to ten, I would give it a ten. It's great to use. Our biggest departments use it every single day, and it's integral to all of our Acumatica functions, including from purchasing to sales. It touches every single part, he says."

Century Pharmaceuticals deployed eWorkplace Apps Process Manufacturing and Quality Management solutions with Acumatica Manufacturing Edition in 2025. Their previous solutions weren't scalable, and their maximum process was paper-based. They selected eWorkplace Apps solutions to meet all the requirements, from making liquid measurements to end-to-end quality control, at an affordable price.

"Going to Acumatica, we needed eWorkplace to help us with process manufacturing with liquid measurements, spill materials, variable raw materials, batch-based processes, as well as the quality control that's required for that. The traceability, the lot traceability, the audit trails, all of that at a price point that we could pay for, and so no other company showed us something as competitive both in the bang for the buck, the quality, and what we got for the price, says Nathan."

Implementation

It was Century Pharmaceuticals' biggest technical project because pulling data from their old three systems and making it properly synced to the new eWorkplace Apps system wouldn't be easy. "Switching to Acumatica from old processes was the biggest technical project we'd had at our company. It was definitely a big leap of faith, says Nathan."

Century Pharmaceuticals experienced a smooth and responsive implementation process. Unlike previous solutions, the eWorkplace Apps implementation team stood out for its responsiveness and deep domain knowledge.

"We were very satisfied with the implementation of eWorkplace Apps. Our implementer was very quick to respond and give us thoughtful answers that met our specific business needs. Other implementation systems weren't always aware or great at listening to exactly what we needed. Our implementation team was very thoughtful and very knowledgeable in their expertise, Nathan says."

Century Pharmaceuticals deployed eWorkplace Apps Process Manufacturing and Quality Management Suite for Acumatica in 2025.

Enhanced Traceability and Visibility

Century Pharmaceuticals uses eWorkplace Apps with Acumatica cloud ERP, a single system for their end-to-end quality and manufacturing needs. The unified system allows them greater data visibility across the departments and manufacturing process, enhancing traceability. "Since using eWorkplace with Acumatica, we've gained a lot of time. It's a learning curve, but now that our employees and departments understand and like the software, we're putting in data one time, and every department is getting that data, we're printing off beautiful reports that are easy to customize. And we're seeing an audit trail and traceability of all the information, says Nathan."

"My favorite part of the quality management system is the traceability, he says." Traceability ensures the company stays compliant with FDA regulations and builds confidence during audits.

Batch Size Flexibility and Unit Conversion Accuracy

Process Manufacturing involves complex Unit of Measurement (UOM) conversions and complex batch types. Century Pharmaceuticals makes different sizes of batches every day, and it's difficult to manage multiple batches one by one. eWokplace Apps enables them to scale batches flexibly in one go. "My favorite part of the process manufacturing suite is variable batch sizes, Nathan says. "It scales it to the batch size every time, he adds."

With Process Manufacturing Suite for Acumatica, Century Pharmaceuticals can now easily handle complex UOM conversions involving the specific gravity and density of the products. Century Pharmaceuticals no longer needs to make error-prone manual calculations. The system takes care of it with accurate results that other solutions couldn't manage.

"All of our products are liquid-based, which causes some complex unit of measure conversion, and that can be very complex for other systems to do. If not impossible, we had not found any other solutions that synced with Acumatica that could do all of the math and all of the traceability that we needed for our complex batch types, says Nathan."

Improved Efficiency Through Automation

Century Pharmaceuticals used to enter data manually in multiple systems and processes for just one item, including the paperwork. After implementing the eWorkplace Apps solutions, it can now generate automatic QC orders, saving hours of their time.

"Hours and hours and hours are saved every week without triplicate processes in our old system. And just having one source of information and one automatic quality control order for every purchase receipts or automatic scheduling of quality control for batches produced – the automation and the synchronization is just something that we couldn't even dream of in our former systems that did not talk to each other, says Nathan."

Efficient Version Control

Managing revisions for batch records is now seamless. It allows them to view past updates and plan for the future based on their specific business requirements

"The revision history and being able to revise batches throughout the years is very helpful. We can see both how the product was made in the past, but also how we can revise it in the future if raw materials change or packaging specifications change. It is very easy to do version control with our very controlled products, Nathan says."

Improved Data Insights and Trend Analysis

Eliminating paperwork, maintaining silos of data in files, and making it all digitized help with better insights into data all at once. Replacing paper-based QC and batch records with digital ones helped Century Pharmaceuticals with faster access, informative insights, and trend analysis. "If we see certain results from equality order over a period of time, that's on a dashboard. We see traceable metrics and trends instantly, Nathan says." He adds, "We're also seeing production status in real-time."

Comprehensive dashboards and insightful reports enable them to make faster and better decisions by giving them visibility into past and present data and trends. "There's a lot of real-time information and a lot of historical data that wasn't easily available from our paperwork before," says Nathan.