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"Vitamin IBM" Boosts Pharmavite's Immunity to Disasters; Systems Lower Costs, Provide Emergency Protection

Vitamin-maker Pharmavite runs its business on IBM (NYSE: IBM) System i to improve efficiency and lower costs while minimizing risks from earthquakes or other potential disasters that could disrupt its operations.

For the first time, Pharmavite can run all of its finance, sales, order entry, advanced pricing, warehousing, manufacturing, distribution and Lotus Notes applications and email, on a single System i, a tightly integrated system that is prepackaged with the hardware, software, security and storage needed to run business applications. At the same time, the company has a parallel System i located out of state to provide back-up in an emergency. Consolidating its operations on two systems will provide a 32 percent maintenance savings over the next year.

"We are very comfortable with running all of our critical applications on the System i because it is the most reliable system out there in the market today," said Danny Lujan, vice president, Information Systems, at Pharmavite. "We strongly believe that keeping our architecture simple and straightforward allows us to manage our systems more effectively."

Pharmavite produces 11.5 billion Nature Made-brand vitamin tablets, capsules, and soft gels annually and makes more than 35,000 shipments per year to both domestic and international customers.

To meet this demand, Pharmavite takes an active approach in business continuity planning, and its information systems play a vital role. Pharmavite runs a System i 570 as its enterprise production server and also has more than 80 System x servers that it uses for applications, imaging, and other functions. Currently, the company is implementing Oracle's JD Edwards EnterpriseOne ERP suite, and all of its business applications will be in production on the System i. Pharmavite has an identical System i running at its out of state facility which automatically kicks in the event of a disaster.

"With IBM, we can deliver a broad range of applications and services with the optimum performance and fail-safe reliability our business requires," said Lujan. "My up-time with System i is 99 percent or better."

System i's ability to turn on additional processors as needed was also a key factor in Pharmavite's decision to standardize on the system. Because System i can scale as each phase of Pharmavite's ERP project is complete, the company has confidence that the system will handle the increased workload.

About Pharmavite

For more than 30 years, Pharmavite has earned and maintained the trust of pharmacists, consumers, and retailers by manufacturing high-quality vitamins, minerals, herbs and other dietary supplements that are safe, effective and science-based. As an industry leader, Pharmavite adheres to manufacturing standards recommended by the United States Pharmacopeia (USP), a not-for-profit organization that has set pharmaceutical and dietary supplement quality standards since 1820. In addition, Pharmavite participates in USP's Verification Program for dietary supplements.

The dietary supplement industry is regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission, as well as by government agencies in each of the 50 states.

To learn more about IBM, please visit www.ibm.com or for more information on IBM System i, visit http://www.ibm.com/systemi.