A persistent challenge in highly regulated industries is getting the right label on the right product at the right time. Ever-changing regulations can make this a long and arduous task, particularly when these companies maintain the usage of outdated manual labeling and artwork management processes. It is clear that the introduction of an automated system can provide value, but the question is: how?

A quick thought experiment...

Consider a designer taking 30 minutes to create a label at $40 an hour. 1000 labels would cost $20,000 to produce conventionally. Not only can Automated Artwork Generation save $1000’s by producing labels quickly and automatically, it will get it right the first time too. This is a great advantage when it comes to responding to regulatory changes, making label changes a much more straight-forward, clean process. Furthermore, this method vastly minimises the risk of recalls, which can incur massive costs in high-stakes industries. In fact, we’ve found that in the case of many of our customers, automation has allowed organisations to reach an average label and artwork generation time of well under 60 seconds.

Real-life results

Throughout 2020, we at Kallik were able to capture highly impressive Veraciti™ user data. User data improved as the year went on, as a result of continuous development in Veraciti™ tools and technology. This, in combination with our release of Project Brief Manager 3, has allowed us to achieve spectacular results, such as a 50% reduction in project completion time at a major life science company. The very same tools and technology that delivered this incredible reduction simultaneously handled a 27% increase in the number of labels or artworks being generated by Veraciti™.

Of course, the migration of our solution to AWS has also been paramount in maximising these benefits. The added speed and security which the AWS cloud provides has aided our customers in countless ways, with enhanced resilience, full compliance with ISO/IEC standards, GxP requirements and data privacy, these benefits have had a knock-on effect.

Through the adoption of our automated platform, a leading medical device company can now process a typical monthly workload of over 8,000 artwork creation jobs at an average rate of one job per 37 seconds, in turn cutting average label and artwork project completion time from 52 to just 26 days. A major chemical company, meanwhile, has seen artwork generation times slashed by 75% over a four-month period to an average of just 12 seconds per artwork generation, with another in the oil & lubricants sector reaching just 3 seconds per task.

Innovative automated artwork and label management is the way forward

Organisations in highly regulated industries who are adopting automated artwork and label generation in favour of using manual processes or outsourcing design work to third parties are seeing major time and cost reductions. Through further investment and innovation, we hope that our Veraciti™ statistics will reflect these advantages even further as 2021 progresses. We are committed to providing our customers with optimal efficiency and results.

Beyond helping companies in highly regulated industries get to grips with disparate labelling and artwork processes, our findings also demonstrate the benefits of automation scale over time and as organisations grow their operations. Many of these organisations have traditionally employed third-party designers to create and amend artwork and labels to great expense, with these assets numbering in the thousands. The cost efficiencies for bringing these operations in-house and introducing automation are clear.

Automation has a critical role to play for industries such as medical devices, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, cosmetics and food & beverages, where regulations are tight and mistakes can have serious effects on brand reputation or consumer health. 

As we have seen with the rush to comply with EU Medical Device Regulations and the potential regulatory shifts of a prospective Brexit deal, the agility and centralised control of a dedicated artwork and label management solution has become a necessity for businesses rather than simply a nice thing to have; automation is the future of efficient and reliable label and artwork management.

Highly regulated industries are continually being hit with more stringent rules and changes, particularly when it comes to their artwork and labels. As product portfolios grow and businesses penetrate new markets, it becomes increasingly difficult to identify and respond to the changes that these new regulations entail in a timely manner. 

This has a subsequent impact on speed to market, for both new and existing products, and can also result in product recalls if this process is handled inadequately. While your business needs to get products to market quickly to remain competitive, it is essential that this process is also quality-driven in order to maintain regulatory compliance.

Basic artwork management is not enough

Historically, there has been a major focus within these markets on artwork management, where artworks are approved, stored in an asset manager and version controlled. However, Gartner notes that ‘what has typically been called labeling and artwork management in the past is only artwork management that governs artwork activities for the final product packaging’. 

Enterprise labeling and e-labeling technology has subsequently emerged to ‘address the distinct needs of specialized labeling, product traceability and transparency’. It has become increasingly clear that an artwork management system is not enough to achieve speed to market. 

Enterprise label management will take your business to the next level in terms of speed to market and compliance. More and more businesses are discovering the benefits of a single, end-to-end enterprise labeling and artwork management (LAM) solution that both encapsulates and compartmentalizes the entire labeling process. Compliance is guaranteed through the ability to access audits from every step of the process, identifying problems instantaneously and preventing long-term issues such as recalls or wider compliance shortfalls.

In a highly competitive business world, the ability to quickly locate labels affected by regulatory changes and make swift amendments to them is of greater significance than ever for companies that operate on a global scale. When thinking about sharpening your label and artwork management process to drive business growth, there are three key areas to focus on:

1. Structure your data to drive traceability and quality 

In order to appreciate the value of managing and structuring your data correctly, it is helpful to consider the consequences of not doing this. Imagine that you have 10,000 products in your portfolio, and 50% of these are sold in a market where you are required to place a specific regulatory symbol on all labeling. The regulator requires you to use a different version of this symbol and you have 6 months to implement this change across all of your products. How easy would it be to find all labels and artwork which use the old symbol, update them with the new symbol and send them for approval? For most organisations, just the task of finding the impacted artworks alone can take months, due to the fact that their data structures do not allow this traceability.

Data needs to be structured in a way that allows the individual elements of an artwork or label to be managed independently of the artwork itself. Phrases, translations, symbology, imagery and all other aspects of the label need to be individually stored in centralized asset and phrase managers. This enables version control of each constituent part, as well as the ability to pre-approve each component, so you know that you're building your label with correct and compliant data. The value of this method of label data storage cannot be overstated, as it provides a basis for simplifying and optimizing the rest of the labeling process. It enables common components to be standardized and reused across all artwork and labels, and getting the data right upfront means the artwork creation process is much smoother.

2. Enable collaboration across the value chain

Once all of your label components are contained within a single location, the relevant data can be structured into a label dataset. At this stage, you can select each of the components (images, phrases etc) that your label requires and determine where they appear with the confidence that each component has already been pre-approved. 

Collaboration is key here; stakeholders across various teams such as product, marketing, regulatory and legal may be required to contribute to the label dataset. Automated routing should be in place to ensure that the people who need to give their input or approve artworks are given the opportunity to do so. Furthermore, the system you use for this needs to be readily available across the globe with 24/7/365 uptime to ensure that all timezones are catered for; cloud hosting makes this possible. 

Preventing delays at the artwork creation and approval stages is paramount to speed to market, and digitizing the data collation and approval process ensures that new artworks get to the relevant approvers as soon as possible. If the data is correct the first time and it goes straight to the people who need to see it, your new label will require far fewer rounds of approval. Speed to market is not just about how quickly the label itself is changed; it is ensuring that approvals are correctly executed the first time around too.

3. Automate traditionally manual & time consuming processes

Of course, speed to market can be improved beyond centralizing the process to one end-to-end system. Having all of your labels in a central location is one thing, but finding every label that uses a specific component is another. 

The enterprise labeling solution you choose needs to enable you to easily identify all labels that are affected by changing regulations. Take the example of the post-Brexit change from the CE mark to the UKCA mark on products sold on the UK market: the affected labels can be identified automatically through setting a simple search criteria. Perhaps in this instance the search would include (1) All UK labels (2) containing the CE mark component. This sort of search function can return search results in a matter of seconds, giving your company an accurate representation of the task at hand. 

Apply this process to tens of thousands of affected products that would otherwise need to be identified manually, and the value of this function becomes very clear - even finding just 100 impacted labels manually is an incredibly time-consuming process. In the pursuit of speed to market, the ability to easily locate labels with any given components is essential regardless of your company size.

Another clear way to speed up the process of getting a product to market is to automate artwork creation. Many businesses outsource their label artwork to external design teams, disconnecting an otherwise streamlined, end-to-end process. In the case of technical labels predominantly found in the chemical and life science industries, labels can be generated completely automatically with the right LAM solution; once the relevant components are chosen, the software will create the label for you using pre-defined templates. New artworks can be created in seconds, instead of weeks.

Digitizing your labeling and artwork management process will support revenue growth 

An intelligent enterprise labeling and artwork management solution provides numerous competitive advantages across highly regulated industries. Kallik’s market leading solution, Veraciti™, is already helping our customers across medical devices, chemicals, cosmetics and food & beverage industries achieve huge efficiencies in their labeling processes. At Kallik, we’ve seen our customer’s project completion times cut in half, with an average label and artwork generation time of less than 60 seconds, monumentally improving speed to market. Find out more about our impressive statistics here.

Medical device manufacturers, pharmaceutical firms, chemical and cosmetics companies use Kallik to deliver trust in their labeling, confidence in their brand and integrity in their process. If you want to find out more about how we can support your label and artwork management transformation in your business, please get in touch at beth.peckover@kallik.com. We’d be more than happy to help.

In a world where regulations tighten, consumer demands evolve, and sustainability takes precedence, the Labeling and Artwork industry is undergoing a profound digital transformation. Our comprehensive guide (Top Tips: Your Guide to Mastering Enterprise Labeling & Artwork in 2024) delves into this revolution, offering insights from industry experts and real-world success stories that highlight the crucial role of digitalization.

Embracing the Digital Revolution

The shift from traditional processes to cloud-based, automated platforms in labeling and artwork management (LAM) has become a strategic imperative for organizations navigating regulatory complexities and adapting to changing market landscapes. Cloud-based solutions have emerged as the cornerstone, enabling global collaboration, instant updates, and enhanced security. According to Gartner, by 2025, an estimated 85% of businesses will have adopted cloud-based technologies into their daily operations—a trend that's reshaping the industry's standards and capabilities.

The Power of Artificial Intelligence and Automation

Integrating AI-driven systems has revolutionized accuracy and speed in LAM, significantly reducing errors and facilitating swift adaptations to regulatory changes. Automated artwork creation and modification, often taking just seconds, have replaced weeks of manual revisions. The transformative impact of AI isn't just about efficiency; it's about achieving complete regulatory compliance and instilling confidence in labeling accuracy.

Template Technology: A Game-Changer in Efficiency and Compliance

Template technology offers agility, scalability, and compliance, leading to significant cost savings and ensuring precision in label and artwork management. Its impact extends beyond financial implications, playing a vital role in regulatory adherence, particularly in critical industries like healthcare.

Prioritizing Personalization and Sustainability

The demand for sustainable packaging and labeling is at an all-time high. Digital platforms are enabling businesses to swiftly adapt to eco-friendly practices through customizable, pre-designed templates, ensuring operational fluidity while meeting sustainability goals.

Looking Ahead to 2024

As we move further into 2024, the evolution of LAM continues to be driven by digital innovation. The strategic adoption of cloud-based solutions, AI integration, template technology, and a focus on sustainability is shaping the future of enterprise labeling and artwork management. This digital transformation isn't just an upgrade—it's a fundamental revolution that propels businesses toward operational excellence and unwavering precision in a fast-paced global marketplace.

Your Next Step in Mastering LAM

If you're eager to learn more about the digitalization of labeling and artwork or seek guidance on enhancing your LAM process, our comprehensive guide offers expert insights and success stories to guide your journey. Download the full guide here and take the first step toward mastering enterprise labeling and artwork in 2024.

For personalized advice and assistance tailored to your business needs, speak to a Kallik expert today by emailing enquiries@kallik.com. Your journey toward a more efficient, compliant, and sustainable LAM process begins here.

Download the full guide for expert insights and success stories in mastering Enterprise Labeling & Artwork in 2024.