Product Development Overview

There are interconnecting processes on Formpak for Product Development including:

1. Creating and modifying formulations and raw materials
2. Projects and Tasks
3. Classifying and retrieving items
4. Tracking composition changes
5. Global changes to compositions
6. Permissions

Creating and Modifying Formulations

Use Add a New Formulation to add the code and name and then the composition itself. You can update the formulation, e.g. to add a Flashpoint, using Modify a Formulation. To update the composition use ‘Modify a Formulation’s Composition’.

Creating and Modifying Raw Materials

Use Add a New Raw Material to add the key details, identity information, properties and more. Then use ‘Add Composition to a Raw Material’ if you need to add a composition. You can update the raw material using Modify a Raw Material. To update the composition use ‘Modify Raw Material Composition’.

Projects and Tasks

Projects can be used to manage all kinds of work. In addition to traditional projects involving product developers, product evaluators and samples, other possibilities include projects for stability testing, marketing requirements, analytical and documentation requests.

Classifying and Retrieving Items

Items can be found using Find Matching Items. You can search by many attributes, including sensory notes and class, cost and regulatory properties. You can also encompass Suitability Check (which determines if an Item complies to specified criteria like regulatory or customer restrictions)

Raw Materials and Formulations can be classified in many ways including sensory attributes like their smell, taste and feel, their benefits like relaxing, isotonic or wrinkle smoothing. These attributes are generally added in the Classification area.

Tracking Composition Changes

When a formulation is developed, it receives a composition version number which can be seen in the Composition tab of a View/Modify a Formulation. If there are any changes to the composition in the future, this version number is incremented. All compositions are retained, even the outdated ones. It is possible to view and compare current and outdated compositions in ‘View previous versions of compositions’. You can see previous versions of raw materials here too.

Global Changes to Compositions

You can change one component for another in all formulations on your system, or target changes at specific item classes or percentages. When a change is made in this process, the composition version number is incremented.

Permissions

Permissions are used to manage which functions users are allowed to access and which items they are allowed to work on.