A leading consumer products company needed a comprehensive quality system to automate global change control. The personal care, household care and hybrid care divisions sought to implement best-in-class technology to manage cross-functional change control over equipment, processes, materials and documentation. This included activities such as packaging changes, new product launches and execution and follow-up on tasks and action plans. .

Between its UK locations and its stateside locations, the company had been using three separate quality management systems that did not interface with each other. The company required all systems be consolidated into one to improve data visibility, such as metrics, reporting, CAPA information and event handling. These functional areas were site-based and regional-based whereas the company needed a consolidated and standardized, global approach.

THE SOLUTION

Given the complexity of the requirements, the company decided that the TrackWise Enterprise Quality Management Software (EQMS) was the best solution. The TrackWise team was able to offer a higher level of professional implementation services than any other prospective quality management systems partner. Because the company was risk averse yet needed to implement TrackWise as quickly as possible, it was imperative to have confidence in a partner who could deliver on time and on budget. One of their executives affirmed, "We felt TrackWise was the most capable solution to support a rapid global implementation. To work up to a single system to support the whole of the business, we believed the TrackWise team could de-risk that process most effectively."

Preceding implementation, the TrackWise team worked closely with the company during a five-day workshop to define processes and establish the TrackWise configuration. By choosing TrackWise EQMS for its process design and streamlined implementation, the personal care pilot launched in six months followed by a global expansion to 20 sites within 10 months.

THE RESULTS

The company realized numerous benefits by using TrackWise EQMS: Previously manual processes were automated, eliminating the need for hardcopy and spreadsheet data recording. The validated, centralized system produced uniform change control throughout the organization. New efficiencies were realized due to process improvements and streamlining. Greater global control was attained across harmonized processes. Enhanced visibility improved change management, auditing, and CAPA management.

One of the company’s executives stated, "This has been the most successful IT project managed at a corporate level."

Wanting to maximize the positive results, the company is expanding the TrackWise rollout to the remainder of its 45 manufacturing plants worldwide.

THE CONCLUSION

This consumer products company realized the many benefits of using the TrackWise EQMS. TrackWise replaced several incongruent regionally-based quality management systems with one centralized system. The new system significantly improved the new product launch processes while achieving enhanced monitoring and control. The global change control automation enabled the company to gain streamlined efficiencies, redundancy eliminations, heightened process visibility, and significant improvements with task execution and follow-up. The company is well-positioned with its proven TrackWise system to complete its worldwide rollout.