Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) are essential documents in any organization, including those in the pharmaceutical industry. Material management SOPs provide guidelines and instructions for the proper handling, storage, tracking, and disposal of materials used in manufacturing processes. Here’s a general outline for creating material management procedures (SOP) tailored to your organization’s specific needs.

1. The Marketing Division will forward the requirement of local and export products, bonus. Deals samples, and toll-manufactured products on the prescribed Customer order from the Production Manager, 120 days in advance of the finished stock. Requirement for acceptance and approval. The P.M. will approve the customer order and forward it to the Production Division.
2. The production Division will generate a production plan against approved customer orders, schedule batches on a monthly basis in line with the available capacity, and forward plan to P.M. for approval. Production will have 7 days to finalize the plan.
3. Planning Department will carry out materials requirement planning within 7days from the receipt of approved plan. MRP will base on materials stock on hand, orders due, lead times and minimum order quantities (MOQ). Lead time is time from conveying of materials requirement to the arrival and availability of materials in stock.
4. MOQ is the minimum amount or lot or pack size that must be ordered in one instance. Lead times and MOQ’s are conveyed by the departments directly negotiating with the suppliers or subcontractors. Upon finalization of MRP, Planning will generate purchase requisitions for local and imported raw and packaging materials for dispatch to the concerned department and copies to Finance Department for funds management planning will generate purchase requisitions on monthly basis.
5. Purchase Requisition will bear material code, name specification, MOQ, last purchase price, quantity to order, and the date by which the material must be available in stock.

Following divisions and departments will raise orders immediately on receipt of the respective purchase requisitions:

• Operations Divisions Imported raw material and finished products.
• Procurement Division
• Local and imported packaging material
• Local raw material

For materials against Letter of Credit, respective department will obtain indents, forward L/C opening requests to the Managing Director for approval, and forward the approved request to the Imports Department for L/C establishment. These department will raise corresponding purchase orders for each L/C enabling MRP system to track orders in pipeline. For material other than through L/C, respective department will raise purchase orders.

Finance division will ensure availability of funds for timely establishment of L/C.

Imports Department will coordinate with Finance Division to establishment L/C and send advice/copy of L/C to concerned divisions.

Operations and Procurement Division will follow up shipment of orders with Principals/ Suppliers and ensure that the respective materials and delivered and available in stock by the required dates. In case of shipment delays, they will notify Production, Planning Department, Finance, Stores, and Imports about the revised arrival status.

Upon receipt of shipment advice, Imports Department will intimate Finance Division for arrangement of funds of clearance of consignment. Imports Department will ensure clearance on arrival of goods at ports.

The respective purchasing departments will notify Planning about any changes in procurements lead times and minimum order quantities fir incorporation into material planning systems.

A-B-C. Analysis has been developed as part of materials management system on computer. Purchasing officials can run this program to identify materials, which will have a major contribution in total cost. These items would be the vital few on which purchasing attention should focus in terms of negotiating to reduce the cost significantly.

Upon arrival of materials, stores will take necessary action for storage. Quality Assurance department will initiate inspection, sampling and analysis. After conducting required tests, quality assurance will convey results to following divisions for further necessary action.

Material	Accepted	Rejected	Damaged / Short
Imported Raw Material	Operations Production Stores	Operations Production planning Stores	Operations Production Finance Stores Imports
Imported Packaging Material	Procurement Production Stores	Procurement Production Stores	Procurement Production Stores

Production Division will ensure that actual production is carried out as planned and that all unused material drawn from stock is returned to the stores promptly.

Any changes in the order quantities required by Marketing will triggered the system resulting in corresponding modification in the production plan, MRP, and purchase requisition.

Stores will evaluate stock of raw and packaging materials every six months to identify dead and slow moving items, Actions regarding these items will be taken jointly by the designated stores, quality assurance, and purchase personnel.