Roche plays it safe with Scope

One hundred per cent accuracy is a top priority at pharmaceutical giant F Hoffmann-La Roche. However, statutory regulations frequently change in this industry, requiring continual updates to packaging design and production processes. Errors can be fatal, so Roche's strategy was to play it safe by installing an automated workflow system to ensure “zero error quality”. Esko's Scope packaging software suite, integrated with ArtiosCAD, PackEdge DesignWizard and BackStage, enables the company to adhere to Good Manufacturing Practice guidelines from packaging design all the way through the production process.

Roche's new packaging and logistics centre is located in Kaiseraugst, near the company's headquarters in Basel, Switzerland. This large, state-of-the-art facility acts as a central hub for all of the company's packaging design, packaging production and logistics activities, including 24 packaging lines and a fully automatic warehousing operation.

The Artwork Management department is responsible for both the launch of new products and on-going design modifications, providing marketing companies and agencies in 130 countries around the world with pharmaceutical packaging. The Kaiseraugst operation also supplies Roche's other packaging locations in Europe with printed copy. The department team consists of 35 specialists in the fields of IT, design and project co-ordination.

Esko's Scope software suite is keeping this demanding workflow on track and productive - the number of sales packs shipped in 2005 was close to 100M units, comprising about 9,000 different packaging materials.

Roche was an early adopter of digital workflows, installing object oriented prepress software from Barco Graphics in the early nineties. As new internationally applicable technology standards such as PDF, XML and VRML became established, Roche chose to migrate to Esko's Scope software suite. Esko was formed through a merger in early 2002 between Barco Graphics and Purup-Eskofot, so there was a strong continuity in the company's technical expertise and on-going service and support.

New statutory regulations or technical, layout-specific adaptations require Roche to make design changes quickly and accurately on a daily basis.

"On behalf of our customers, we need to alter 4,500 printed components per year," says Birgit Pietzonka, head of product launch and change management. “That's equivalent to about half of our entire range of packaging materials. We need to respond to our marketing companies, external customers and packaging operations with the required packaging materials, while adhering to safety standards and time critical deadlines."

Roche places a strong emphasis on its corporate branding and this further complicates the production process.

"Over the past 10 years, we've been working on a corporate principle that we call the 'Roche Family Design',” she explains. “However, our business teams are increasingly calling for product branding that brings the product logo more to the forefront. But on the user side, hospitals and government agencies are requesting greater differentiation about the dosages. These demands have made our production process increasingly complex due to an ever growing number of versions. We needed a system that is user friendly and productive."

Roche's challenge was to find a packaging workflow that successfully integrated safety, data integrity, speed and user friendliness. Esko's Scope suite is aid to deliver full functionality for automating processes, facilitating the efficient administration of text and images, and accurately directing this content to the correct position within the layout template. Roche's Artwork Management department implemented Scope with ArtiosCAD (development), PackEdge (layout) and DesignWizard (versioning) in early 2005.

The main interface, developed by Esko, provides a seamless link between Roche's existing Oracle database running under the Unix operating system and the BackStage server operating under Windows. Text files containing the instructions and content that are stored in the database are passed directly to BackStage through hot folders without any copying process.

The DesignWizard component of Scope was engineered to meet Roche's specific needs and integrated in the existing system environment. DesignWizard automatically assigns the right elements (text in the specified language, logos), correctly formatted (typeface and size, colours, and so on, to the product packaging on the basis of field links in the layout template. Different packaging versions can be created with “maximum reliability” within a very short time. In addition, the parameterization makes it possible to automatically create folding boxes of different sizes using a single template.

In the integrated prepress workflow, BackStage, combined with applications like ArtiosCAD, PackEdge and DesignWizard, represents the nerve centre for the automated processes and guarantees data integrity. Packaging material structures created in ArtiosCAD are transferred to PackEdge in native format, without conversion, for visual design. As users always access identical data, absolute data integrity is said to be guaranteed.

Roche chose the Esko packaging software suite because it is based on open systems and supports all recognized industry standards, such as PDF, JDF (XML), and VRML. This enables it to meet the company's current and future needs. The system can be integrated in company-wide systems (ERP, MIS), thereby permitting a high degree of automation across entire process stages using centrally stored data.

To co-ordinate process validation with other external Roche locations, the Artwork Management department in Kaiseraugst uses Esko's WebCenter, a browser compatible solution which gives authorized users access to a central server. Without any additional plug-in, processes can be monitored through the internet, regardless of time and place, and every change made to the printing copy can be traced back in detail. The object is present in native format at all times, regardless of the user's location.

Roche's experience shows that implementing a user friendly, automated workflow can be extremely useful for simply and accurately managing the entire packaging production process. Esko has configured Scope to create a dependable workflow concept that meets the quality and safety criteria of the FDA while complying with GMP guidelines - as the production process is delivering increased productivity.