Slingshot now offers a customer portal for its pharmaceutical customers who provide contract manufacturing services (CMOs).  The portal allows a CMO’s customers to view their inventory balances and initiate activities by entering a Service Request.

Several types of Service Requests are supported. The Receipt Request informs the CMO of material which is in transit to a CMO facility.  This includes the Ship From address, expected receipt date and lots shipped, quantities, manufacturing dates and expirations.  The Shipment Request directs the CMO to ship specific lots and quantities to a customer location.  A Destruction Request directs the CMO to destroy specific lots.  A Count Request directs the CMO to take a physical inventory of all material items and/or specific lots. A Test Request directs the CMO to perform stability testing services on a specific lot.  A Batch Request directs the CMO to process a manufacturing batch.  The request identifies all component materials and optionally, lots to be used.  All Requests require CMO review and formal acceptance prior to execution. 

The CMO portal is available to authorized users 24x7.  All that’s required is a standard browser.  Each of the CMOs customers has a profile identifying the capabilities available to them.  The customer can set up their own internal users and restrict their capabilities as well.  The portal runs in its own environment and does not have access to the CMOs network or data.  It can be installed integrated with materials management software or “stand alone” with no integration needed.

According to Paul Carr, Slingshot’s CEO, “The CMO Portal tool helps eliminate ad hoc emails.  It streamlines processes, reduces errors and saves time while ensuring complete auditability.  It is also a revenue opportunity opening the door to new services the CMO may wish to offer.  We are excited to be able to provide this to our CMO customers who make up about half of our Pharma installed base.”

Click the link below to download the CMO User Portal data sheet.  For more information, email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

GS1 (Global Standards 1) is an international standards organization with member bodies in more than 100 countries worldwide (GS1 US, GS1 CANADA, GS1 FRANCE, etc.).  GS1 standards are the most widely used system of standards in the world.  In addition to defining standards, GS1 offers an array of tools to facilitate the adoption of these standards.  

GS1 has developed EPCIS as an open standard allowing businesses to capture and share supply chain information about the movement and status of goods.  EPCIS provides a single language for sharing information on supply chain events as materials travel throughout the supply chain — from business to business and ultimately to consumers.

The EPCIS standard makes it easier for pharmaceutical companies to meet the requirements of the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA).  These include pedigree tracking, sell unit serialization, customer returns verification among other requirements. 

Slingshot is now utilizing GS1 identifiers for Products (GTIN), sell unit serial numbers (SGTIN), Supply Chain Address (SLCC), Aggregate Units, Pallets and Containers (SSCC) and Companies and Locations (GLN).

Slingshot uses the EPCIS language to record lot creation (Commissioning), packing or combining units (Aggregation), Shipping and Receiving events.  To accomplish this, the EPCIS language was added to Slingshot’s Connect tool.  Connect captures events, logs them in a database, and exports them to commercial repositories using GS1 standard web services (JSON or XML format).  EPCIS queries allow Slingshot to receive the complete history of a lot from manufacture, changes in ownership, consumption by another product, to the final consumer.  Serialized units returned by a customer are checked for “salability” using an EPCIS query (verification router service).

Slingshot has validated its EPCIS extensions using the GS1 development environment.  Implementation with a future repository will require certification for the specific repository selected.  For more information, email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Slingshot has announced a number of enhancements to its system monitoring tools.

Customers hosted on MS Azure will benefit from our Cloud Monitoring enhancements.   All of the system web endpoints are now monitored separately. The main endpoint health check now also verifies the database availability as well as the background services status. In addition, the Slingshot health monitoring suite also tracks the DB and File storage utilization to make sure the resources never reach their size quota.  The support team receives an email instantly when a fault is discovered in any of these areas.  This allows Slingshot to immediately investigate and resolve the issue, often, before it affects the end users.  These new features were installed earlier this year and are being utilized for hosted customers today.

Both SaaS and On-Premise customers are protected by the new Job Monitor Alert.  This alert regularly checks all background jobs reporting any that have failed recently as well as jobs that have been running for an extended time.  It also reports the jobs that have a scheduled run time in the past.  This indicates they were skipped by the job processor or experienced an unhandled error.  As with all alerts, a message describing the issue appears on our customer’s application administrator dashboard and/or is provided in a periodic email.  The Job Monitor alert is part of Release G2-17 scheduled for general availability in January of 2024.

According to Paul Carr, Slingshot’s CEO, “These new facilities add to our library of backup, recovery, reconciliation and other housekeeping tools allowing us to provide unmatched application availability and resilience.”

For more information, email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Also, you may apply for a free business process evaluation on this page.

Slingshot has added “Lot Costing” as a valuation option to its eStock inventory control application.  This is in addition to the “Standard Costing”, “Replacement Costing”, “Layered Costing (LIFO or FIFO)” and “Average Costing” methods currently supported.

Lot Costing retains a financial balance for each lot whether they be lots purchased from suppliers or product in manufactured batches created in Slingshot.  When batches are manufactured the “Lot Cost” of batch components is aggregated to create the financial balance for the lot produced.  “Lot Costing” will be utilized primarily by pharmaceutical and chemical manufacturers who require precise calculation of the value of materials used to produce a specific lot.  This results in a more accurate margin calculation when the material is sold.

According to Paul Carr Slingshot’s CEO, “Our new Lot Costing capability is a response to customer demand.  It is missing from certain competitive offerings.  We believe it further solidifies our position as a leading supplier of validated pharmaceutical manufacturing and inventory control software”.

For more information, or to receive a demonstration of the eStock application, contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..