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Specification management is a labor-intensive activity for many companies in the food industry. There is an awful lot of data in circulation, such as raw material specifications, packaging information and recipes. This data must be complete and current in order to ultimately produce a correct end-product specification and label.
That this still often goes wrong can be seen in the many recalls due to incorrect labeling. "Many companies still work with separate documents and spreadsheets and link the data from these documents manually. Besides being labor-intensive, this is also very error-prone with possible recalls as a result," says IT specialist at Précon Consulting Group Rien van Alphen.
"Besides being labor-intensive, it is also very error-prone resulting in potential recalls."
Thus, specification management is an important process in which errors can have far-reaching consequences. Digitizing the process of specification management makes the work less labor-intensive, more reliable and less prone to error. "At Précon, we work with software developer Quasydoc. This is a complete quality management system that, among other things, supports specification management in a powerful way," says Van Alphen.
To take full advantage of the specification management module, the application offers the following benefits:
The basis of the Quasydoc specification management module is a portal, which both the producer and his suppliers can enter. The producer designs an empty specification and lets the suppliers fill in the specification for each raw material. After approval, the data can be transferred into the producer's Quasydoc database.
The producer then builds his product structure in Quasydoc using the approved raw materials as building blocks. The final product's ingredients, nutritional values and allergens are then calculated automatically.
The outcomes are used to create a final product specification, but can also be linked to GS1 and PSinFoodservice. This link ensures that both portals are automatically populated.
"Linking data in Quasydoc and external portals is the key to working more efficiently."
"This way of working ensures that all data only needs to be registered once, making it less time-consuming and less prone to error," Van Alphen explains. "Linking data in Quasydoc and external portals is the key to working more efficiently. Moreover, Quasydoc has several more useful features, such as, for example, an automatic message when a specification expires, an option to link specifications in multiple languages, or a search function by ingredient. Everything is aimed at making life easier in the specification management department."
Contact us at info@precongroup.com, NL +31 (0)30 65 66 010 or BE +32 (0)11 26 99 07.
Subscribe to our newsletter, our monthly look at food and non-food quality management.