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Specification Management

Author Specifications
With Your Suppliers

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Code of Federal Regulations

Creating and Updating Specs Requires Input Across the Organization and from Suppliers

Common pitfalls when managing raw material and finished goods specifications:

  • 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.
  • Communicating with suppliers and co-manufacturers about specification updates is often a manual and time-consuming process.
  • Maintaining detailed and current raw material and finished goods specifications is cumbersome, especially when version control, authorization, and audit trails are needed.
  • Stakeholders exchange information through email and voicemail, making it nearly impossible to track agreements, information, or supporting documentation.
  • Ensuring suppliers and stakeholders have the latest version of specifications is difficult without automated workflows and update notifications.
  • Siloed data across R&D, quality, regulatory, and purchasing departments delays specification creation and slows down new product development.

Networked Specification Management Can Fix It

With TraceGains Specification Management, you don't need to worry about tracking down suppliers, items, or ingredients to build your specs. Since most food, supplement, and CPG suppliers have uploaded documents and item data into TraceGains Network, we wanted to make it easy for you. Log into Specification Management and get instant access to all that data to speed up your specification process. Networked means no more time spent tracking down suppliers and requesting information or documents because you're already connected, and we can help automate the rest. With TraceGains, you can digitize everything from raw material to packaging to finished goods specifications. Then use the data to power configurable dashboards and reports to determine compliance against label claims, nutrition targets, thresholds (like Prop 65 Lead amounts), and country of origin. And with an open API, you can pass data from your ERP or PLM system to TraceGains. The result? Complete supply chain visibility. Automated workflows and alerts for internal and external stakeholder updates and approvals streamline document and information exchange. Version control ensures up-to-date specifications are used, reducing 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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BUILD
SPECIFICATIONS

Easily create, publish, and update raw material, and finished goods specifications

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RESPOND
TO MARKET

Rapidly respond to new consumer preferences, market demands, and seasonal availability

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WORKFLOWS
AND ALERTS

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

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SUPPLIER
CO-AUTHORING

Select suppliers to co-author, edit, review, attach documents, negotiate attributes, and approve or decline shared specs 

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NETWORK
CONNECTED

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

Key Features

CONFIGURABLE
TEMPLATES

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

AUTOMATED COA
COMPARISON

For TraceGains Supplier Compliance customers, the system compares COAs to specs, to identify non-conformance CAR status

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, for better version control

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 raw material and finished goods specifications

CFR

"With TraceGains, our R&D teams are going to be a lot more involved with specifications going forward. Now, they can create formulations and build spec sheets, for both raw materials and finished products in one system."

- Tom Dubinski, Vice President of Quality Systems

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