Question: How many days does it take to make a label change?
Answer: 198
198 days. That’s more than 6 months. That’s more than 28 weeks. In fact, if you want to get deep in the weeds, that’s 4,752 hours!
Phew, that’s a lot of time. It’s also a real problem.
In today’s on-demand society, your consumers want their product now, not 198 days from now. The longer they wait, the more likely they are to get a product similar to yours from a competitor.
Stating the obvious, if you don’t want to lose consumers, you must execute label changes in far less than 198 days.
To make label changes in 198 days a thing of the past, you must take a long, hard look at your label and packaging artwork approval process.
Let’s look at how to pick up the pace.
Ban Label & Packaging Artwork Approvals from the Inbox
Why are label and artwork packaging approvals such a time-consuming process?
For one, many teams rely heavily on email and even IM to communicate. And while these systems have numerous benefits, the truth is they hurt more than they help.
How? Here are a few ways emails and IM can sabotage your approval cycle:
- Scouring email threads and IM chats to track down approvals is time-consuming and messy.
- Understanding who needs to approve what is often unclear.
- When deadlines are assigned via email, there’s no automated reminder system for approvals.
- Manual processes are needed to track approvals, due dates, and issue reminders
The result – unhappy stakeholders and last-minute edits, both of which can derail your project’s success and add days to your cycle time.
If you often find yourself in similar label and packaging artwork “approval pickles,” you’re not alone.
There's a Better Way
Stop digging through emails and hunting down feedback.
Savvy teams remove approval processes from email and instant messengers and implement an automated workflow management solution.
Life Sciences, Pharma and Consumer Goods companies alike praise packaging label and artwork workflow management technology.
Investing in artwork approval software may seem like a big commitment. But it may be the cure for what ails your business.
Let’s explore the benefits of artwork approval software.
Automate Your Approvals
Assigning approval tasks with due dates in a workflow management solution gives stakeholders visibility into the approval timeline and notifies the approver of upcoming deadlines.
This saves time and allows companies to handle additional projects concurrently. And with more new projects underway, employees’ workdays become more interesting and productive, improving overall morale.
The icing on the cake: more employees involved in revenue generation is good for your business.
Quickly Trace Approvals
Automated workflow management enables companies to trace multiple iterations of an approval.
Documentation is producible for each step, and the resulting transparency and traceability supports root-cause analysis when delays occur.
It also pinpoints bottlenecks and shows where an item is in the approval process, enabling efficient follow-up or highlighting opportunities for process improvements.
Enhance Recordkeeping
A workflow management solution also records each action that takes place on the platform.
This means you know who performed what action and when – providing a permanent, unchangeable record to rely upon in the event of a critical issue such as a product recall.
Store All Files and Feedback Centrally
If you’ve been using a manual process, especially one centered around email approvals, you know how challenging it can be for a designer to synthesize feedback and ensure each action item is accomplished.
At its core, artwork approval software changes the way approvers perform their functions. Instead of combing through a cluttered inbox, they simply open the workflow management tool.
A list of tasks to complete awaits them – with supporting documentation attached and available for review. The tool also enforces deadlines by automatically sending reminders and flagging an approval that is overdue.
An online artwork approval software assures all relevant information is stored centrally and the most recent version of a file is available.
Improve Audit Readiness
Automated workflow management helps companies maintain audit readiness and improve compliance through efficiency, consistency, and documentation.
Your company has clearly defined internal controls, and automated workflow management ensures those controls are followed every time, with the added benefit of signature-level proof.
Beyond the functional attributes, automated workflow in a label and artwork management solution also preserves historical records and associated evidence.
This reflects documented proof that all the right people have been involved during reviews, adjustments, and approvals to ensure preparedness for possible internal or external audits.
Identify Problem-Areas
Do you know the most common artwork rejection reasons for your brand?
With approval software, you can catalog rejection reasons and identify the process areas responsible for the most concern.
Knowing this helps you mitigate those problems in the future.
Save Time, Stress, and Money
Artwork approval software allows for data to be collected and shared in a fraction of the time.
No more wasted time worrying about your colleagues’ progress and if their tasks are completed.
At the end of the day, this is a benefit designed to make you and your team’s life much easier.
Your brand will develop a better, more efficient process that ultimately allows you to spend more time on revenue generating activities.
How Esko Can Help
WebCenter from Esko enables your team to collaborate and approve artwork content faster from anywhere, anytime.
Multiple reviewers can provide feedback and annotations from a single online source, helping you streamline your processes and identify bottlenecks.
Time saved, efficiency achieved, and profits increased. Who could ask for more?
