The manufacturing industry, especially the food and beverage domain, needs to have agile production practices to meet the changing consumer demands. It presents a new challenge, as manufacturers need to get the product to market faster to maintain their competitive domain. Also, they have to maintain quality, sustainability, and regulatory compliance.
A Product Lifecycle Management tool helps enterprises in facing such manufacturing challenges. Click here to know more about the benefits of utilizing such tools.
Key Components of a Product Lifecycle Management Tool for Process Manufacturers
New Product Development
A Product Lifecycle Management tool’s role is to improve the product-to-market rate while ensuring it meets the quality and regulatory requirements laid down. Collaboration becomes key when expediting new product development.
Providing real-time feedback to the R&D team can help them improve their processes. When manufacturing in bulk, the process of procuring raw materials or other products also needs to be optimized to reduce costs, time while improving quality.
Product Management
The manufacturing process of existing products also needs to be optimized to a cost-efficient initiative. The tool should leverage processes such as in-house formula/ recipe management, specification management, utilizing material analysis modeling to generate formulas on actual product results.
With increased collaboration and real-time data visibility, the decision-making process is improved with the continual feedback loop in place.
Label Development
Once the product has been developed, its label needs to contain ingredients, safety hazards, allergens, and many other details complying with the regulatory authorities. For example, in Australia and New Zealand, when reporting food products, the Country of Origin detail needs to be mentioned to comply with government requirements.
Label development is an essential component of Product Lifecycle Management. There are technicalities like nutrients, their recommended daily allowances, certification, and endorsement information. A PLM should ensure these processes are being adhered to before the product hits the market.
Integration Tool
A Product Lifecycle Management tool needs to have a deep integration system embedded into its ecosystem to flow information across different teams. There are various teams involved in process manufacturing, each using different tools to enhance their productivity.
The PLM tool should integrate different unconnected systems to ensure uniformity of data across all teams. Processes can be streamlined easier and faster. Collaboration can be improved when all parties involved have a cohesive view of the enterprise data.
Regulatory Requirements
The regulatory demands, especially in food, beverage, life science manufacturing, are continually evolving. This may prove a challenge when entering new markets, especially considering the time constraints in process manufacturing. As regulations change to accommodate safety standards across different countries, the product to the market timeline can be severely impacted.
A Product Lifecycle Management tool should automate the creation of various documents required by regulatory authorities, achieve compliance for labeling requirements and have a central data repository for all project relevant documents.
An efficient implementation of a Product Lifecycle Management tool can help your enterprise maximize production while cutting costs. It should optimize existing production practices, quality control, regulatory compliance and enhance collaboration with all parties involved.