Case Study
What is the Best Way to Scale, Eliminate Errors and Improve Compliance?
Over the last decade, Wellington Foods experienced a considerable increase in demand for their services. The consumer packaged goods manufacturer noted their paper-based system was prone to errors that slowed time to market and was too cumbersome to scale.
“We’ve had some comprehensive paper-based systems, but as we’ve grown, the paper-based systems became harder and harder to manage. As we looked at ways to improve our processes and demonstrate control of those processes, we identified a number of ways technology can bring that to bear,” said Tony Harnack, president of Wellington Foods.
Focus:
Contract manufacturer of nutritional dietary supplements in liquid and powder form
Founded:
1990
Headquarters:
Corona, California
Employees:
150+
Eliminating paper to achieve scalability in production, reduce data entry errors and process inefficiencies that cause delays, and improve visibility for management and customers.
By implementing MasterControl solutions, Wellington Foods increased their ability to meet demand, shortened a lengthy post-production review process to 72 hours, increased visibility and reduced time to market.
They selected MasterControl because the cloud-based solution scales easily, and there is no need to invest in costly infrastructure while gaining access to sophisticated tools that address numerous pain points: documentation errors, speed to market, and ease of compliance.
““We’ve realized that automated solutions like MasterControl give us the ability to manage a higher volume of transactions than we could with a paper-based solution.”
President, Wellington Foods Inc.
Wellington Foods is regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the state of California, and customers. As part of remaining compliant, the organization must demonstrate process control, which is central to FDA’s CFR Part 111 regulation for the dietary supplement industry.
To streamline these efforts, Wellington Foods adopted MasterControl’s patented (U.S. Pat. 10,324,830) Validation Excellence Tool (VxT)™, a first-of-its-kind risk evaluation application that dramatically cuts down on software validation time and effort.
Right-First-Time Production. Visibility. Customer Satisfaction.
The switch to electronic batch records (EBR) eliminates common data integrity issues because data limits can be built into master templates, and an incorrect entry is either rejected or the system operator is alerted. An operator not up-todate on training is unable to enter data into the system. In this way, mistakes are avoided or corrected almost immediately, and reducing errors makes it possible to conduct a review by exception and achieve right-first-time production (RFT).
Digitization provides Wellington Foods with insights into the entire production process. Connectivity across systems provides real-time visibility on a single dashboard, so managers can make decisions about changes to improve efficiency. This type of agility is impossible with a paper-based system.
““Our management’s philosophy from day one with using MasterControl’s electronic batch records was to get people to focus on the right things. What makes a quality product better is being able to focus on the work, not the paper.”
MasterControl System Administrator
Increased visibility also allows Wellington Foods to establish or continue building trust with customers because they can offer real-time information about where their product is on the production floor, when it will be ready, and how they are adhering to customer specifications and regulations while demonstrating that quality is built into their process.
“Our customers depend on us to have a system that works for them. If they give us an order for a multivitamin that’s due in six weeks, that requires Wellington Foods to accumulate a great number of products, approve everything, schedule, and produce all at one time,” said Harnack.
Trained Employees Focus on Adding Value
Employee training at Wellington Foods used to be a time-consuming effort conducted in separate departments. As the company expanded, their documentation process became more detailed, and they now go through change control and updates on a regular basis. All necessary documents are stored in a central location, and their training matrix helps to quickly identify and address knowledge gaps.
More trained operators on the floor increases the rate of production while ensuring regulatory compliance, and because the focus is no longer on paperbased processes, employees can turn their attention to value-added activities.
Reduce Paper and Improve Data Integrity
Errors caused by a paper-based system resulted in delays while product waited to be shipped because the post-production review process wasn’t complete. With MasterControl, these areas saw substantial improvements. Shop floor data input errors were decreased by 90%-100% and the post-production review process, once taking 10-15 days, is now complete in 72 hours. Reducing delays results in additional time for employees to focus on critical business processes and ultimately time-to-market is faster, which provides a valuable competitive edge.
Ready to Get the Same Results?
We have a lot of amazing companies achieving remarkable results using our solutions. If you need to see similar results at your company, then let's talk!
Please Contact Me
