How do you ensure consistency with product specifications and quality from a globally diverse supply chain?

Working across 70 geographies, WD-40 Company’s CMOs function like different business units, each with different federal and state laws and regulations as well as different systems of measurement and container sizes. This made it challenging to keep all the entities on the same page in terms of how to make the product — what goes into the product and what must not go into the product.

Also, the company’s data, design documentation, reports, quality manuals and procedural documents were scattered across a variety of locations, including paper documents, spreadsheets, emails, individual workstations, etc.

“From a quality perspective, you want things to be the same. That was spinning away; everyone was doing their own thing. But having one quality management system like MasterControl, we were able to pull everyone into the same orbit and get them all on board,” said Rob Busacca, Vice President of Global Quality

WD-40 Company’s product lines have formulations that require precision procedures to follow for ensuring the consistency and integrity of the products. There needs to be a way to effectively communicate with all organizational entities as well as visualize and resolve issues up and down the supply chain with minimal delays.

Seamless Communication, Unified Processes, Improved Efficiency

MasterControl provided the technology for WD-40 Company to optimize resources, systems and processes. It also gave all business units across the organization a single source of truth, so there is no confusion about any aspect of the operation. “I can take a nonconformance report from Asia and understand exactly what’s going on the same as I can with a nonconformance report from the United States. So, there’s no bits of paper; there’s no confusion,” said Busacca.

Products That Consistently Meet or Exceed Customer Expectations

Working with CMOs was difficult because WD-40 Company initially did not have a complete bill of materials (BOM), statement of ingredients or any safety data sheets (SDSs). The first BOM the staff put together for a single product took about three years.

With MasterControl, WD-40 Company’s BOM processes have immensely improved. They have a complete list of the raw materials, ingredients, specifications, documentation, etc., on how the products are to be manufactured, and a clearly defined outcome that each product must comply with — all in one location.

“ MasterControl has made quality’s job of navigating through discrepancies much easier. Before MasterControl, it was difficult to understand what was right because it wasn’t documented in a common place. Now we have more assurance of right-first-time outcomes.

“Our manufacturing sites, our aerosol fillers, have come to appreciate our bill of material system, have come to rely upon it, and in fact, have come to insist upon it,” said Jeff Cole, Vice President of Operations.