Croda Chemicals integrates labeling with SAP

Croda International is one of the world’s leading producers of specialty chemicals for the personal care, pharmaceutical and nutritional, home care, industrial, polymer additives and food markets and has a turnover of £300 million.

With demand for global distribution ever increasing Croda employs approximately 2,000 people at manufacturing sites and offices throughout Europe, the Americas, Africa, India, the Far East and Australia.

Croda’s ERP (enterprise resource planning) system from SAP is central to efficiently running virtually every aspect of its business.

Now, thanks to PRISYM ID, Croda has been able to take even greater advantage of its SAP R/3 system by using it to help improve its product labeling operation.

Why a New labeling Solution was Needed

Like all chemical producers, Croda has to comply with strict CHIP labeling requirements as far as the information contained on the labels is concerned, while, in addition, the company also has to meet special customer and local language requirements.

Although only two basic label sizes are used, 220x160mm for drums or IBCs and 160x120mm for 25Kg sacks, there are limitless print variations due to the number of products, Health & Safety information required and the special requests of some customers.

Croda was already using PRISYM to generate its labels and much of the information needed for the labels was located within a database attached to the PRISYM labeling program, while variable information was keyed in at the time of printing.

The Solution

Once SAP was installed, Croda realised that every item of information needed for the labels, including the variable data, was already contained within various parts of the system. To make use of this, the company started to look for ways of drawing together all the information required for the labels and loading it directly into the PRISYM labeling program.

Fortunately PRISYM ID has considerable experience in linking PRISYM to many other kinds of programs including ERP and MRP systems such as SAP and worked with Croda to achieve the desired objective at relatively low cost.

To print labels using the new system the operator simply needs to select the type of label and quantity required.

The relevant data is then extracted from SAP and transferred to PRISYM along with details of all the variables for those labels. Once PRISYM receives the necessary files the labels are produced automatically at the relevant print station.

Benefits

According to Tony Pickford, Business Process Team Manager at Croda Chemicals, linking PRISYM into the SAP system is making label production extremely simple and the possibility of manually keying in errors has been eliminated.

 PRISYM has always been Croda's preferred label production system and linking to the company's SAP program is a very valuable exercise.

  -   Tony Pickford, Business Process Team Manager

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