Herbs from Switzerland - Software from Germany
Almost everyone knows the former Ricola advertising slogan "Who invented it? What consumers are often not familiar with, however, is that the production of herbal products is subject to high quality standards as well as strict requirements and guidelines, including both the International Featured Standards Food (IFS Food) and the Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP). Ricola has been using the QM software roXtra from Roxtra GmbH to manage all documents of the quality management system (QMS) since January 2018.
Ricola AG in Laufen BL is considered a pioneer in natural herb cultivation and looks back on a long history. The company has been family-owned for three generations now. In 1930, the Richterich & Co. confectionery factory was founded by Emil Richterich. He was intensively involved with the healing power of herbs and in 1940 developed the first recipe of 13 herbs still used today for the world's most popular Ricola product, herbal sugar. The products are now exported to over 50 countries. The herbs for these products still come originally from Switzerland. Every year, over 100 Swiss mountain farmers supply 1400 tonnes of fresh Ricola herbs.
High standards for good quality
For the further processing of the herbs and the manufacture of the end products, Ricola pursues high quality standards and relies on established standards. For example, the company is certified in accordance with ISO 9001:2015 as well as IFS Food - according to which specific regulations must be met as a food manufacturing company. In addition, the herbal products are subject to the quality requirements of "Good Manufacturing Practice for Pharmaceuticals" (GMP) due to their proven medicinal effect. In addition to the standards, Ricola ensures the self-imposed high standards, for example, through its own risk-based spot checks. This is the only way Ricola can guarantee seamless quality throughout the entire process and production chain - from incoming goods inspection to outgoing goods.
The other side of the coin: High administrative burden
However, a high level of quality also means a high administrative burden for a large number of documents. "Our quality management system now comprises over 6000 documents," explains Gabriel Hugenschmidt, Vice President of Quality Management at Ricola. "For the management and administration of the documents, we were already using two document management systems (DMS) before roXtra. However, with these there was a dependency on higher-level IT programs, among other things, so we sought a system change."
The requirement was for the new system to be set up as simply and quickly as possible, based on the existing DMS, and for the documents to be migrated easily.
Convincing solution found
"roXtra convinced us on various levels: The software is very user-friendly and easy to operate and manage. In addition, it is characterised by a high level of reliability during operation. The customer service on the part of Roxtra also deserves special mention. From the first contact, excellent and reliable support was guaranteed," reports Gabriel Hugenschmidt. "The system has therefore quickly established itself in our company and the internal user queries have decreased noticeably. We were also able to significantly reduce the number of incorrect documents with roXtra. This was also noticed positively during inspections and audits."
Roxtra worked closely with Ricola on the implementation. The responsible project manager from Roxtra accompanied and supervised the project throughout its entire course and supported the Ricola project team through regular consultations and training. Everything proceeded according to a clearly structured plan: Roxtra took over the technical installation and supported the data transfer. Ricola's internal IT then carried out the further administrative set-up - including the creation of various user groups in roXtra. This enabled the Swiss company to implement the new software in the company in a structured manner and at its own pace.
Implementation of special solutions
"Even special requirements and special solutions were no problem and we were able to develop and implement them together with our contact at Roxtra. For example, we developed a special workflow for documents that are available in paper form in production, such as cleaning plans and manufacturing instructions. In addition, we now have a workflow that allows us to fill out forms directly in roXtra, approve them and save them," says Hugenschmidt.
Validation of the software in the GMP environment
Another special feature was the GMP-compliant validation of roXtra: "Validation is often a challenge: it increases the project effort by about 20 percent, provided that experienced employees and established specifications are available. The validation accompanies the project from the idea to its completion. It is therefore difficult to quantify the absolute effort involved. It is estimated to be around fifteen working days, which can be divided equally between conceptual and purely documentary tasks. However, this effort is more than compensated for by a stable, functioning system," explains Hugenschmidt. Thanks to the close cooperation and coordination between Roxtra GmbH and Ricola AG, the validation of roXtra worked smoothly: the Swiss company was thus able to draw on previous experience with other DMS and IT systems, while Roxtra provided support during the implementation and created and provided the corresponding required technical documentation.
Thanks to the successful implementation and - as they say - convincing usability of roXtra at Ricola's headquarters in Laufen, the introduction of the software is currently also being examined at the subsidiary in the USA. An English version of the system is already in use: "Several employees at our headquarters in Laufen are working with the English version of roXtra," says Gabriel Hugenschmidt. "The product has clearly met our expectations and we are in the process of testing other offerings from Roxtra GmbH."
