Millipore Replaces SAP with Oracle(r) Applications

Life Sciences Industry Leader Migrates 1,000 Users from SAP to Oracle in Under Ten Months.

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif.-Millipore, a life science leader providing technologies, tools and services for bioscience research and biopharmaceutical manufacturing, has replaced SAP with Oracle(r) Applications in a recently acquired company. After investing in Serologicals Corporation in July 2006, a company who had completed a worldwide rollout of SAP, Millipore decided to consolidate the installed applications and migrate 1,000 users to the Oracle E-Business Suite. As a result, Millipore has been able to streamline common business practices and achieve a single global instance across its worldwide divisions.

Last year, Millipore executives devised a financial roadmap to double the value of the company within four years. To further this goal and expand into new, high-growth markets such as drug discovery products and services, nuclear function and stem cell research, Millipore purchased Serologicals. Prior to the acquisition, Serologicals completed a worldwide deployment of SAP. Based upon its successful history relying on a single, integrated suite of Oracle Applications, Millipore decided to replace Serologicals’ entire SAP implementation with the Oracle E-Business Suite. With Oracle, the life sciences industry leader has consolidated customer data and eliminated duplicate information so that it can rely on an accurate and consistent view of its global customer base.

“Our continued investment in Oracle is clearly contributing to our vision of doubling in size by 2009. By replacing SAP with Oracle in our Serologicals division, we were able to ship 25 percent more orders on the first day we were live,” said Millipore’s CIO Bridget Reiss. “As a globally distributed company, it’s important for us to have consistent and accurate data. We’ve achieved this with Oracle and now have the peace of mind that we’re all relying on the same set of information.”

Millipore’s growth as an S&P 500 Company introduced it to multiple, new processes with lengthy lead-times required to formulate antibodies. A long-time customer of Oracle Discrete Manufacturing, the company realized it required additional manufacturing capabilities. Protege Software Services, a Certified Advantage Partner in the Oracle PartnerNetwork, helped Millipore to complete a global deployment of Oracle Process Manufacturing. The company now leverages the complex costing and scaling capabilities of Oracle Process Manufacturing to plan and manage its batch material requirements and minimize variances. The lot status capabilities and integrated quality control features of Oracle Process Manufacturing provided Millipore with the strict controls that are critical within the life sciences industry.

To quickly train the Serologicals employees on the new Oracle Applications, Millipore utilized its already-installed Oracle iLearning module to manage, deliver and track online training. Millipore’s globally distributed employees were able to access the system based upon their availability and were equipped to complete the training at their own pace. Employees who had previously used SAP found Oracle more intuitive and user friendly, which was critical to getting all 1,000 users efficiently and effectively trained on the new system.

An Oracle Applications and Oracle Database customer since 1991, Millipore first implemented Oracle Financials and Oracle Inventory Management, and the company worked with Oracle to co-develop the initial version of Oracle Order Management. In 1999, Millipore was one of the first companies to achieve a single, global instance.