Industry Challenges

Benefits of ProductVision
In this market, you must be able to rapidly analyze what the customer wants and translate those needs into new products. Sometimes several times a day. ProductVision Formula Management allows formulators to access past experiences and to rapidly create new products based upon this information.  Laboratory calculation capabilities, such as solids percentage, volatile organic compounds (VOC), and product costs are built-in.  Rapid prototyping of products may be done using ProductVision’s powerful "What-If" functionality.  With this, the formulator can eliminate non-viable formulations before going to the bench to produce test batches. The Regulatory Compliance features in ProductVision allow you to automatically create required regulatory documents, such as Material Safety Data Sheets.

All of this in a user-friendly Windows environment that reduces training time.


Features for Chemical Companies

"What If" Feature Allows You to Quickly Calculate Alternative Formulas
With ProductVision’s “What-If” analysis tool, you can quickly prototype new products.  You may set a target property or cost value for a formula, “float” one or more components, and have the system arrive at the correct composition to meet the target.
 

Alternately, a formula’s composition can be directly edited and ProductVision will recalculate and display the new formula properties.

Compare Recipes Side-by-Side to Determine the Best Alternative
ProductVision allows you to compare an unlimited number of formulas directly in a spread-sheet view making comparisons of similar products a snap.   The formula comparison is “tabbed” to allow you to compare formula compositions, properties, specifications, testing information, notes, alerts, and other information directly. 
 

For further study, you can quickly export some or all of the information to Excel.  You may use the raw material comparison feature to perform similar studies for your raw materials.


Create Product Test Series Automatically Using the Formula Design Module
ProductVision’s Formula Design Module allows you to create a series of related formulations automatically to streamline new product development projects.  Using this, you can vary the levels of existing raw materials, replace existing materials with substitutes and make other necessary changes in a large number of alternative formulations at the touch of a button.

Track Testing and QC Requirements in the Integrated Testing Module

The Testing Module is a powerful tool that allows you to enter extensive testing information for raw material and formula.  A single test entry may include multiple test attributes, notes, and test results. 

The flexible design of the module makes it ideal for many different types of tests including physical property, toxicological, microbiological, clinical, and analytical tests.  Test results can be numeric, character, date, or logical (true/false).  You can set up a test to require as many test attributes and results entries as necessary to fully define the test conditions, final results and judgments (pass/fail).

Control Formula Creation and Revisions with Automated Approvals
ProductVision’s integrated Workflow Module greatly simplifies the execution and tracking of workflows that are commonly encountered in product development.  This may include new product creation, reformulation projects, competitive analysis studies and new/edited product formula approvals.   ProductVision allows you to integrate and optimize your business processes, providing increased efficiency and accountability.

Security Features Control Access and Editing of Formulations
ProductVision security allows you to restrict who may view, create, edit, delete, or print formulations.   Formula access can be further restricted by formula type, location (entity) and status (“Experimental”, “Production”, etc.).   This ensures that only qualified employees are able to view and/or modify your formula information. 


Fully Integrated Regulatory Compliance
The ProductVision Regulatory Compliance Module greatly simplifies compliance with hazardous communication regulations.  ProductVision automatically generates raw material and formula-driven Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDSs), product labels and other regulatory documents.  The system fully supports all current US and EU reporting requirements.  Input of required resource information is simplified by using our integration to the Ariel Insight chemical property database.  Browser-based access to finished regulatory documents is easily accomplished with the Regulatory Distribution Module.

All Changes to Information in ProductVision are Recorded for Future Reference
All changes made to an item are logged by the system.   Details of the change include the user who made the change, the date and time, and exactly what was changed on an item.

ProductVision allows you to prevent future changes to be made to a finished formula by assigning a “locked” status to the item or by moving the item to a non-editable Entity or Security Type.

"My Work" and "My Recent Work" Buttons Cut Development Time
ProductVision has two buttons which help you streamline your development tasks.  The “My Recent Work” button displays previously opened items in chronological order.  This sort order of items on the window can be changed by clicking on the column header.  Displayed items can be opened simply by dragging-and-dropping them onto the desktop.
 

The “My Work” button allows you to create a “to-do” list of items that you want to work on within ProductVision.  You can enter comments about pending work and even assign items contained in your work cabinet to another ProductVision user.
 

With proper security rights, a manager can view “My Recent Work” and “My Work” entries for any or all ProductVision users, if desired.

Single Source for Product Information
ProductVision eliminates the need for multiple systems (spreadsheets, databases, additional software packages) to maintain product formulation, characteristic, specification and costing information. ProductVision gives the user a single source of information. With ProductVision there is one database which holds all information concerning raw materials and formulations, and that same integrated system handles the automatic calculation of product properties, costs, and regulatory information.  Product Developers have access to information from their peers throughout the company, thus chemists and others work together as a team.

ProductVision Includes Extensive Reporting
ProductVision has many standard reports which allow you to view your raw material, formula composition and property information, as well as allowing you to create your own custom reports using our HTML reporting tool.

Some ProductVision Users in the Chemical Industry Include:

Eastman Chemical Company
Elementis - The Rheox Group
Emerald Performance Materials
EMCO Chemical Distributors, Inc.
Infineum International, Ltd.
Johnson Polymer
Noveon, Inc.
Resolution Specialty Materials

Modules Used in the Chemical Industry Include:

Formula Management
Auditing
Data Transfer
Projects
Workflow
Regulatory Compliance
European Regulatory Compliance
Regulatory Distribution
Ariel Interface
Testing
Samples
Formula Design
OLE Automation/Events
Guidelines and Restrictions