Conformia announced that its Development Operations Management Solution (DevOps) – a combination of the Conformia Scale Up Management System (SUMS) and Product Conformance Management (PCM) platform– is now an SAP-endorsed business solution. SAP's endorsement marks the culmination of an extensive solution specification, development and testing process by SAP. As a result, Conformia's solution is now integrated with SAP solutions at the platform, application and business scenario levels. The solution builds a bridge between the development and manufacturing functions of product operations in regulated process industries such as life sciences and beverage alcohol.

The solution will allow customers to leverage their investments in solutions from both SAP and Conformia and cross the chasm between development and compliant Commercial Manufacturing Operations through a new comprehensive suite of integrated modules.

"Conformia's solution is one of the first commercial-grade solutions for connecting development and manufacturing in the process industries," said Joe Prang, president and CEO, Conformia. "The result of our relationship with SAP is a unique and valuable offering for those in heavily regulated process-manufacturing industries who want to maximize their existing investments in SAP applications and continue to build a master data strategy to support the product/process lifecycle." SAP-endorsed business solutions are complementary to SAP software offerings, are developed in accordance with SAP development guidelines, and provide additional choices and flexibility for businesses running SAP applications. As part of the agreement, Conformia and SAP will provide development resources, and exchange and share technology and product roadmaps, as well as market the Conformia Development Operations Management Solution.

Development Operations (DevOps) Platform Provides Integrated PPLM Environment
Conformia DevOps is the foundation for the company's full line of integrated application modules designed to support development operations across the entire product/process lifecycle. Offered in preconfigured application suites designed to manage product operations in chemical, biological, drug product, and alcoholic beverage areas, the Conformia platform and applications enable companies to manage their day-to-day product and process operations, integrate process knowledge data for regulatory submissions, improve technology transfer to commercial manufacturing, increase product quality, and reduce the time and expense associated with getting new products approved and into the market.

The challenges of accessing and leveraging information from fragmented and unreliable process systems costs regulated process companies millions of dollars annually, and have the potential to put companies and consumers at risk. Conformia DevOps enables a new level of visibility and traceability across the entire product/process development lifecycle by aggregating and centralizing information, thus allowing greater access, continuity and collaboration across global/distributed operations. The platform and embedded applications provide integration of product and process data across functions, sites, development stages, business processes, products, and more.

SAP-Endorsed Business Solutions – Linking Development Operations and Commercial Operations
By connecting Conformia DevOps with applications such as SAP ERP, the worlds of development and manufacturing are being connected. Key aspects of this solution that are included in the SAP-endorsed business solution are integrated business scenarios that allow users to seamlessly move from a business scenario (process) in the Conformia system to SAP applications and vice versa. Some of the business scenarios include the following:

• Using the order management capabilities of SAP ERP to requisition, deliver and invoice all transactions for development materials
• Linking the commercial materials supply chain back into the development materials supply chain
• Transferring information about new products coming from development into commercial operations

The benefits of this integrated solution include the ability to leverage the corporate supply chain to reduce development time and costs, better access and visibility into the procurement process, reduced inventory corporate-wide, reduced risk of clinical supply availability shortages, etc.

"Endorsing solutions such as Development Operations Management from our co-innovation partners like Conformia serves to bolster the SAP for Life Sciences solution roadmap and enables us to provide measurable value by delivering a ‘whole solution' to our customers," said Jim Sabogal, vice president and global head of SAP's Life Sciences Industry Business Unit. "The use of Conformia Development Operations Management with SAP solutions will enable our bio-pharma customers to bridge the disconnect between development and commercial manufacturing operations, improve employee productivity and accelerate innovative products to market, while lowering the total cost of ownership."

Built on an enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA) and adhering to J2EE standards, Conformia DevOps seamlessly integrates with SAP applications including the SAP NetWeaver platform, SAP NetWeaver Exchange Infrastructure (SAP NetWeaver XI) and SAP NetWeaver Portal.

Earlier this year, the SAP NetWeaver Fund made a minority investment in Conformia Software. The SAP NetWeaver Fund was established in May 2006, focusing on strategic investments in select companies that are committed to the SAP ecosystem and are building innovative solutions based on the SAP NetWeaver platform.