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Managing Specifications Is Difficult for Brand Owners, Retailers, & Suppliers

Common pitfalls when managing raw material and finished goods specifications include:

  • Collaborating and communicating with suppliers and co-manufacturers about specification updates is often a manual and time-consuming process.
  • Many manufacturers, brand owners, and retailers do not fully utilize suppliers as collaboration partners when creating specifications, resulting in prolonged negotiations over attributes and tolerances.
  • Maintaining detailed and current raw material and finished product specifications is cumbersome, especially when version control, authorization, and an audit trail is needed.
  • Stakeholders exchange information through email and voicemail, making it nearly impossible to track any exchanged agreements, information, or supporting documentation.
  • Ensuring suppliers have the latest version of specifications is difficult without an automated workflow and update notifications.
  • Siloed data across R&D, quality, regulatory, and purchasing departments slows down product development.

Specifications Management Can Fix It

TraceGains Specification Management allows consumer-packaged goods companies to author, maintain, and publish raw material and finished goods specifications to meet requirements and accelerate new product development. The system incorporates customer requirements, internal input and judgment, and practical supplier capabilities to provide a baseline for specification creation. Documentation and information exchange are streamlined and centralized, with automated workflows and alerts for internal and external stakeholder updates and approvals. Specification version control ensures up-to-date specifications are used, which reduces out-of-spec inventory, rejected shipments, Corrective Action Requests (CARs), and costly rework due to non-compliant materials.

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SINGLE
PLATFORM

Centralizes specification management and version control with a single platform

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AUTHOR
SPECIFICATIONS

Incorporates multiple data points to provide a baseline for creating specifications

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RESPOND
TO MARKET

Enables companies to rapidly respond to changing buyer preferences and seasonal availability

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COLLABORATIVE
PLATFORM

Facilitates stakeholder collaboration while digitally tracking all correspondence in a single platform

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SUPPLIER
CONFIRMATION

Alerts stakeholders instantly when specifications change and requires suppliers to acknowledge updates

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NETWORK
CONNECTED

Taps into a network of more than one million supplier-provided documents to accelerate specification creation

Key Features

AUTHOR
SPECIFICATIONS

Author and manage specifications that leverage configurable templates, tie to existing items and suppliers, and enable efficient standard operating procedures (SOPs)

WORKFLOW
CAPABILITIES

Leverage workflow capabilities for version control, audit trails, supplier approvals, exporting and printing specifications, and internal and external stakeholder comment threads

FORMAT
SPECIFICATIONS

Format specifications by section or attribute to present label images, packaging and palletizing guidelines, preparation instructions, and in/out-of-spec tolerance images

SUPPLIER-ASSISTED
SPECIFICATIONS

Permission-based supplier access to author or edit fields, attach documents, negotiate attributes, and approve or decline specifications electronically

AUTO
RECOMMENDATIONS

Leverage data from customer requirements, internal input and judgment, and practical supplier capabilities to act as a baseline for specification creation

EASY
PUBLISHING

Automate the complicated process of sharing specification information with both internal and external stakeholders

DIGITIZATION &
CUSTOM REPORTS

Digitize specification attributes and leverage the data to create custom reports and dashboards to gain valuable business insight

FASTER CHANGE
MANAGEMENT

Edit sections and attributes of specification templates with all changes automatically cascaded to impacted specifications

ERP
& PLM

Pass specification data from your ERP or PLM system to TraceGains to automate supplier collaboration or manage it all in TraceGains

Create, maintain, and publish your company’s unique specifications on incoming materials

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“We rely on TraceGains to ensure the consistency of our products. Especially with so many raw materials to manage.”

GSF

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