This IDC Customer Spotlight explores how artwork in packaging can be an inefficient process for many consumer and pharmaceutical organizations.

1. What Are the Key Challenges in Packaging Today?
Many brand-oriented industries — such as food, beverages, personal/home care, and
pharmaceuticals — have seen their business environment change dramatically. Manufacturers now
need to design, make, and launch new, personalized products quicker than ever before. In
response to increasingly demanding and diverse customer segments, and to fend off growing
competition, companies are speeding up design and new product releases. To meet these
demands, they also have to target new geographies and capitalize on resource ecosystems in
multiple regions.
Leveraging the packaging process to increase speed to market is a major challenge in many
respects. The process of designing a new package while maintaining an existing design can be a
minefield of complications. This complex process involves a host of contributors, including internal
writers, external designers, and the people who provide frameworks, images, and logos, as well as
the product teams focused on content, recipes, and ingredients. On top of that, companies need to
May 2017, IDC Manufacturing Insights #EMEA42547717
Customer Spotlight
Challenges and Opportunities in the Consumer and
Pharmaceutical Industry Packaging Process
Brought to you by Tech Mahindra, Powered by IDC Enter the sponsors here
Maggie SlowikLorenzo Veronesi
May 2017
IN THIS CUSTOMER SPOTLIGHT
Many consumer and pharmaceutical companies are struggling to maintain packaging quality and
consistency across product lines. Even minor label translation errors and poor printing quality can
result in costly product recalls that have a huge impact on the business.
Consumer and pharma companies need to equip their workforce with an enhanced IT platform that
creates visibility while offering real-time insights into product information along the entire life cycle.
By doing so, they will be able to:
 Capture and validate packaging decisions upfront to carry out a more complete impact
assessment and make decisions sooner with a greater level of confidence
 Accelerate business processes and approval cycles to reduce costs and time to market
 Improve total life-cycle quality, reduce costs, and increase customer satisfaction, which in
turn enhances brand image and market position
 Increase the speed and accuracy of decision making, especially in processes that are
created under time pressure
This IDC Customer Spotlight explores how artwork in packaging can be an inefficient process for
many consumer and pharmaceutical organizations. If tackled the right way, however, it can save
costs and provide a process that can be leveraged across other areas of the business.
SITUATION OVERVIEW

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make sure that once the packaging has been defined and approved, the print process fulfils the
necessary requirements.
Problems can come from a number of areas — non-standardized bills of material, translation
mistakes, typos and poor proofreading, missed annotations, unclear briefs, artwork problems,
expired digital assets, third-party artwork suppliers and printing shops. Consumer and pharma
companies must also deal with a very strict regulatory environment. In the U.S., for example, the
Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Physicians Labeling Rule (PLR) provides dozens of
labeling, content, and presentation guidelines on how to communicate every class of information,
for every type of drug, for every kind of patient. And each time there is a problem, the manufacturer
risks having to issue a (potentially major) recall.
Recalls caused by issues with artwork and packaging are an ongoing problem for many
companies. According to the FDA, 20% of packaging and labeling-related recalls are due to
defective containers and at least 65% are related to artwork and content management errors.
According to evidence collected in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, the cost of artwork-related
recalls for an average multinational pharma company can amount to several million dollars a year
(and up to $10 million in some cases). In the CPG sector, there is anecdotal evidence that this
could amount to 1% of companies' total revenue.
Poor artwork management can negatively impact companies in other ways too. Having to share
artwork/packaging-related information with partners, including printing and material suppliers,
creates an ongoing challenge in maintaining and sharing the right versions. The time wasted here
can lead to longer time to market and time to value, and can have a negative impact on the
company as a whole.
Managing the packaging process is therefore key to achieving profitability. With an efficient
packaging process in place, companies can benefit in a number of ways and these in turn enhance
their brand image and market position:
 Fewer packaging-related product recalls
 Optimized warehousing and supply chain costs due to less waste
 Lighter environmental footprint
 Adherence to regulatory standards
 Improved process productivity by reducing rejections and rework costs and promoting
standardization
 Accelerated business processes and approval cycles leading to shorter time to market and
lower costs
Efficiently reusing digital assets such as artwork and avoiding duplicates is essential to streamline
the process, improve the quality, and right-size the number of people involved.
The Need for an End-to-End Solution
To achieve these goals many consumer and pharma companies have streamlined the tools and
processes used for product labeling and packaging design. Many still need to figure out how to
deliver information effectively across their organization, especially as business applications (ERP,
PLM, etc.) tend to manage silos of information focused on dedicated processes. In other words,
business applications are very good at doing what they were originally conceived and implemented
to do, but are not so good at seamlessly handing over data and information to other business
processes and applications. As a result, to effectively cover the end-to-end packaging design,
management, and production process, companies often need to rely on expensive and
cumbersome custom applications or error-prone manual processes.

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In this context, companies need a solution that addresses the painpoints through process
standardization, data harmonization, and tool automation. This solution could be a single
application or a set of applications working together while individually performing a defined set of
activities. Capturing and validating packaging decisions upfront enables companies to carry out a
more complete impact assessment and make decisions sooner with greater confidence.
This involves deploying an IT platform that is based on the following principles:
 A flexible workflow framework to accommodate the needs of disparate business units
 A standardized and extensible data model to connect disparate systems
 A scalable configuration to enable additional processes
 Greater automation of the business processes, such as proofreading and online annotation
 Auditability of the system to support traceability and regulatory compliance
A combination of product life-cycle management (PLM) and artwork management system (AMS)
applications addresses most of the challenges in the packaging world, as well as providing a
platform to manage end-to-end packaging and artwork design activities. PLM enables change
management, packaging bill of materials (BOM) management, and supplier enablement processes
and project management. AMS enables management of artwork briefing and proofreading,
drawing, print processes, program management, and digital asset management.
Integrating and exchanging information between PLM and AMS applications to provide a platform
for end-to-end packaging and artwork management is a key issue in the pharmaceutical industry.
Failing to deliver the required operational results will increase the risk of quality failures and
product recalls, adding pressure on profit margins. Compromising on patient safety is the main
issue here, but even when a recall does not pose a direct threat to the consumer, there can still be
a high price — particularly when it comes to non-compliance fines issued by regulatory agencies
such as the FDA. This could not only lead to skyrocketing logistics costs throughout the supply
chain but also to brand damage.
Case Study: Improving Artwork Management in a Pharma Giant
A pharma giant devised a strategy to reduce recalls and improve packaging-related quality, with
the overall focus on patient safety and communicating the correct information. First, however, the
company had to tackle a series of obstacles, mostly related to the fragmented IT tools and
processes used to manage packaging and artwork materials in different business units within the
organization. This had been exacerbated by mergers and acquisitions that had resulted in each
site using different processes and systems.
In one of its business divisions, the company had a number of diverse processes and applications
in place to manage artwork. This resulted in the lack of a single source of truth, as well as poor
resource optimization, including both duplicate processes and material/artwork reusability. Even
print suppliers were scattered, making it more difficult to keep printing costs down. This led to a
series of issues that hindered the company's ability to achieve "right first time" metrics and
increased the number of avoidable recalls.
In other divisions, PLM and ERP were the main systems in place. Even though they were sufficient
to manage data in a standardized way, they did not cover the artwork. Artwork, in fact, was being
managed separately through a series of bespoke integrations with other content management
systems. Force-fitting the artwork solution in PLM did not perform well in terms of stability and
usability, resulting in multiple artwork-related recalls.

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This non-scalable, fragmented IT solution stack resulted in an inaccurate packaging structure, a
duplication of specifications, transcription errors, loss of annotations, and incorrect part number
management — which all led to product recalls and longer time to market.
The company decided to embark on a transformation journey to enable a single platform to
manage artwork across several business units and geographies. After a careful selection process,
the company chose Esko WebCenter as its main AMS, mostly due to features that aligned with the
company's strategy, as well as ease of use.
Next, it embarked on a first of its kind program for solution standardization by implementing and
integrating both Oracle PLM and Esko WebCenter. The company selected Tech Mahindra (TechM)
as its strategic system integration partner for end-to-end implementation of the design, build,
validate, and deploy stages of the solution, while partnering with product vendors Oracle and Esko.
At the time TechM got involved, the only existing system integration steps were a high-level
business process and semi-ready business requirements analysis. This required a standard,
customizable solution to transform the artwork and packaging data model end to end. TechM and
Esko’s approach entailed creating a single platform catering to multiple geographies and business
units via a standardized and simplified process and data model. This approach was designed to
enable new features that were previously not attainable with a siloed approach to the IT systems,
specifically:
 Organizing packaging data to take full advantage of PLM capability
 Enabling content owners to input text directly into artwork
 Creating a central repository and consistent format for technical specifications and
enabling access to third-party vendors
The journey started in January 2015. TechM and Esko proceeded with a combination of
methodologies that included an agile-based model for design and build that was complemented by
a more traditional waterfall approach for documentation, system testing, and user acceptance, a
risk-based testing approach for validation, and a wave approach for deployment and data
migration, plus TechM's proprietary data migration framework to migrate data from legacy systems.
The company is already benefiting from:
 Lower-cost recalls. With the new system in place, the company has a better understanding
of the root cause of quality issues, ensuring the same problem does not occur again.
 Improved regulatory compliance. The company now has access to a pre-validated source
of data that ensures package information and artworks are always in line with regulatory
requirements.
 Improved processes. The company plans to achieve its "right first time" KPI.
 A reduction in new product development and trial management time. Artwork turnaround
time has been significantly reduced, enabling the company to launch products faster.
Artwork is no longer a stumbling block.
 Greater control of artwork management. The company created a connected system that
has improved approval and revision tracking processes. The company expanded its level
of control for all activities related to artwork and packaging.
 Lower costs for artwork changes. The company can now change as much artwork as
required within a single process step.
 Economies of scale. The company has benefited from supplier rationalization and
consolidation due to process standardization.

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 Scalability. With the company planning to grow by M&A, it will be able to scale up the
system to include the new entities in the process.
 Improved user satisfaction. High user adoption is a key positive for the company. While
users were reluctant to change, the new system drives a new way of working together.
This has had an immediate impact on the company and users are now using the same
standardized work procedures.
ESSENTIAL GUIDANCE
Managing digital assets holistically is essential to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements
and avoid costly product recalls. Dealing with end-to-end packaging specifications and
encouraging collaboration among users in different disciplines (design, regulatory, production, etc.)
is key to achieving this.
This entails transformation driven by process standardization across multiple businesses. Central
to this is the adoption of the right companywide platform solution that enables due diligence on
data integrity and the full integration of the artwork and packaging solution with enterprise systems.
IDC provides the following advice to consumer and pharmaceutical companies:
 During the packaging process, internal staff, agencies, and external experts produce
different types of content, including text, images, frameworks, and logos. The key is to
bring the right people together at the right time to ensure that no review processes are
skipped, delayed, or stopped.
 Rather than creating new content from scratch every time you develop a new packaging
solution, work with your vendor on a solution that will allow you to store assets internally
and in a single data structure. You can then leverage other packaging processes and
publication channels such as the web and social media.
 Lastly, invest the time to not only understand which vendors can meet your needs, but also
consider other factors beyond IT knowledge such as track record and features,
collaboration skills, and cultural fit. The better the chemistry with other vendors (such as
ERP and PLM providers, system integrators, etc.), the quicker the results.

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APPENDIX
TABLE 1
Product Features Implemented
Esko
WebCenter
Task management Orchestrating all teams and activities, internal and external, regardless of
locality, region, division, market, and industry, and focused only on those
tasks required of that particular user
Graphical workflow Workflow canvas to manage global processes, segregated regional
processes, or any hybrid of the two that delivers the specific business
requirements
Intelligent forms Capturing, coordinating, and standardizing information at every point in the
process with rapid collation and versatile entry management, creating fully
searchable information fed to every KPI and report
Parent/child Enabling granular project management with associated relationships
maintained from concept through design and even out into the market
Asset browser User-friendly browser to search through every asset, stimulating innovation
while avoiding duplication and eliminating rework
Viewer with content
compare
Market leading viewer with the ability to instantly view and compare files
User-based reporting Search and save reports within the artwork environment that enables user,
role, and global specific reporting, which in turn feeds into the overarching
business intelligence functionality
Oracle Agile
PLM
Product information Product definition capabilities to create, share, and maintain product records
Change management Enable collaboration capabilities for the product change process, enabling
users to easily and systematically create and approve product change
Project and task
management
Project and product management with a single integrated view to support
throughput with automated task completion based on product deliverable life
cycles
Dashboards and
reports
Configurable dashboards and reports for tracking and reporting as per user
needs
Easy to customize and
integrate
Product can be customized and integrated with software development kits
and can be integrated with a web service
Source: IDC, 2017
METHODOLOGY
The project and company information in this document was obtained from multiple sources,
including Tech Mahindra and Esko, and from questions posed by IDC directly to the customer
employees.

7.
About IDC
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