“Also, having access to all the chemicals and their properties right within one system will be revolutionary.”

Misti Gerbensky

Director of R&D

Athea Labs

Customer

Athea Labs

Industry

Specialty Chemicals

Location

Milwaukee, WI

Solution

BatchMaster ERP with SAP Business One

SYSTEMS REPLACED

Legacy ERP

Athea Labs Improves Efficiency by Balancing Material Requirements with BatchMaster ERP

For more than 35 years, Athea Labs has manufactured specialty chemicals and private-label products for customers throughout the Midwest and surrounding regions. The company produces a broad range of products, including herbicides, insecticides, industrial cleaners, aerosols, and wet wipes, and also supports a significant private-label manufacturing business.

In addition to its manufacturing expertise, Athea Labs has built a strong reputation for research and development, quality management, and product innovation through its own Total Solutions product line and extensive customer-focused services.

As the company continued to grow, leadership recognized that its aging ERP environment and disconnected systems were limiting operational efficiency, visibility, and scalability. To support future growth and streamline operations across departments, Athea Labs selected BatchMaster ERP with SAP Business One as its new integrated business platform.

Challenges

Before implementing BatchMaster ERP, Athea Labs relied on a 20-year-old ERP solution running on an AS-400 platform, along with several independent systems and manual processes developed internally over time.

1. Aging ERP Infrastructure and Disconnected Systems

The existing ERP system had become heavily customized and outdated, making upgrades nearly impossible. Several key operational functions were entirely outside the ERP platform, requiring departments to manage critical processes separately.

2. Lack of Integrated MRP and Production Planning

Without integrated MRP and MPS functionality, customer orders and production planning required significant manual effort.

3. Limited Lot and Inventory Visibility

Although Athea tracked inventory by lot number, the legacy system did not maintain a relationship between lot number and location. This made locating First Expired, First Out (FEFO) inventory time-consuming and inefficient.

4. Separate Systems for R&D and Quality Management

Although Athea tracked inventory by lot number, the legacy system did not maintain a Research & Development and Quality Management processes were managed outside the ERP environment through independently developed systems and spreadsheets, creating redundancies and limiting visibility across departments.between lot number and location. This made locating First Expired, First Out (FEFO) inventory time-consuming and inefficient.

5. Manual Financial and Workflow Processes

The company’s previous financial processes involved significant paperwork and manual handling, including outsourced invoice generation and manual approval workflows.

Solution

Athea Labs selected BatchMaster ERP with SAP Business One to consolidate manufacturing, inventory, quality, R&D, and financial operations into a single integrated system.

The company identified BatchMaster ERP as the ideal solution to support:

Lot traceability and FEFO inventory management
Integrated MRP and production scheduling
Formula and inventory management
Sample Management and R&D workflows
Quality Control and cGMP compliance
Workflow automation and financial management
FDA reporting and recall readiness

The implementation also brought departments together in a more collaborative, unified process, helping to align operations across the organization.

Key Results

1. Improved Manufacturing Planning and Inventory Management

BatchMaster ERP introduced integrated MRP, inventory visibility, and lot tracking capabilities that significantly improved manufacturing efficiency.

By connecting inventory quantities with manufacturing, sales orders, and planning functions, Athea Labs expects to reduce excess inventory levels while improving inventory turnover.

The new system also links lot numbers, expiration dates, and warehouse locations directly to pick slips, allowing manufacturing teams to quickly locate and issue FEFO inventory accurately.

“BatchMaster ERP is going to help us in manufacturing in a number of ways,” explained John Olson, Vice President of Operations. “Having the lot number with location on the Pick Slip will be huge.”

2. Automated Formula Consolidation and Material Optimization

Previously, Athea Labs manually grouped products with similar formulas using spreadsheets to optimize production runs and material usage.

BatchMaster ERP now automates these processes by balancing material requirements and combining finished goods with like formulas, reducing manual effort and improving operational efficiency. “BatchMaster ERP will balance our material requirements and combine finished goods with like formulas, which is going to make us so much more efficient,” Olson shared.

3. Streamlined R&D and Sample Management

Athea Labs’ R&D department gained major operational improvements through BatchMaster ERP’s Sample Management functionality. The company can now manage customer product requests, approvals, and sample workflows within a centralized system rather than relying on disconnected manual processes.

“Having the ability to enter a customer’s product needs into BatchMaster’s Sample Management is going to streamline our entire operation,” said Misti Gerbensky, Director of R&D. The company also benefits from centralized access to chemical information, formula management, and improved communication between manufacturing and R&D teams.

4. Centralized Quality Management and Compliance

BatchMaster ERP allowed Athea Labs to bring Quality Management directly into its ERP environment for the first time. Previously, the company maintained a separate, internally developed Quality Management System for quality testing, SOPs, inspection forms, and cGMP compliance.

With BatchMaster ERP, quality testing, inspection plans, checklists, SOPs, and lot-level quality tracking are now integrated into a single system, improving visibility and simplifying compliance management. “Integrating Quality Management within BatchMaster ERP will make tracking Quality for each item at the lot level immensely easier,” explained Dale Hamann, Quality Technical Director.

5. Enhanced Traceability and FDA Compliance

Lot traceability was one of the company’s highest priorities during ERP selection. BatchMaster ERP now provides complete lot tracking from purchase receipt through manufacturing and shipping, helping Athea Labs strengthen recall readiness and FDA compliance reporting.

“We’ve seen how the Lot Traceability Dashboard is a key compliance function within BatchMaster and will be essential for Mock Recalls and FDA Inspections,” stated Tom Jones, IT Director. The integrated system also enables faster validation of FDA reports and better visibility into product release processes.

6. Reduced Paperwork and Automated Financial Processes

By implementing SAP Business One as the financial core of BatchMaster ERP, Athea Labs significantly reduced manual paperwork and administrative overhead. Invoice generation, approvals, order management, and workflow processes are now automated within the system, eliminating many time-consuming manual steps.

According to CFO Kevin Behm, automating these processes will improve operational efficiency while helping the company continue to deliver strong customer service.

7. Greater Organizational Collaboration

The ERP implementation process itself also created stronger collaboration across departments. As teams worked together to replace disconnected systems and outdated workflows, the project helped unify operations and improve communication company-wide.

“This project has unified our team and will continue to improve our collaboration,”

– Tom Jones, IT Director

Looking Ahead

As Athea Labs approaches go-live with BatchMaster ERP and SAP Business One, the company is positioned to modernize operations across manufacturing, R&D, quality, inventory, and finance.

With improved traceability, integrated planning, centralized quality management, and streamlined workflows, Athea Labs is building a scalable operational foundation that will support continued growth, compliance, and innovation for years to come.

About BatchMaster Software

BatchMaster Software is a leading provider of ERP solutions that help growing formula-based manufacturers streamline operations, reduce costs, and comply with stringent regulatory mandates. BatchMaster ERP is designed specifically for the Food, Nutraceuticals, Cosmetics, Pharmaceuticals, Chemicals, and Specialty Manufacturing industries, and can be deployed on-premise or in the cloud.