GMP expects starting materials to be bought only from approved suppliers, under a quality agreement, as part of a qualified supply chain — EU GMP Chapters 5 and 7, 21 CFR 211.84 and ICH Q7 all set expectations here. In many companies purchasing and quality run on separate systems, and the approved supplier list is a spreadsheet the buyer may or may not check. Swat iQua Suite puts the check inside the purchase order.
Sources, not just suppliers
An approved source in Swat iQua Suite is specific: one material, at one of your sites, from a supplier’s dispatch site and a named manufacturer site. Sources move from draft through pending to approved, and can be suspended, rejected or expire. Each carries its own versioned reduced-testing policy, which the warehouse uses at goods receipt to decide whether full, reduced or identity-only testing applies.
The gate at line and at approval
When a buyer adds a line, the system checks that the source is approved and in date on the PO date, that the qualification scope is effective, that a quality agreement is in force and that the manufacturer site has a valid GMP certificate and verified capability. Because circumstances change between drafting and approval, the gate runs again for every line when the PO is approved. Approval is segregated and e-signed, and goods receipts update the PO’s status automatically.
QC lab consumables
Laboratory purchasing has its own simpler route. Items are pooled into an RFQ basket that is emailed to suppliers; multi-currency offers are captured with an exchange-rate snapshot and compared side by side, with Excel export. Quotations and POs are generated as PDFs and can be emailed, finalisation can be e-signed, and partial receipts — with expiry dates — move into lab material inventory or are routed to testing.