Unilever Reduces Cycle Time of Labelling Innovation Process by 98% with Kallik's AMS Trade
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London, 31st May 2007 - Unilever's European Deodorant Division (Unilever Deo RTC Europe) today announces the implementation of Kallik's AMS Trade software solution to fully automate the creation of its artworks for TUC (Trading Unit Code) labelling and other associated secondary packaging.
Developed by Kallik, a leading UK provider of automated artwork management and authoring solutions, AMS Trade provides an easy to use, highly automated artwork authoring, development and management software solution, that dramatically reduces costs, cycle time and risks associated with artwork management and production. Using AMS Trade, Unilever Deo RTC Europe has reduced the cycle time of its labelling innovation process by 98% - processing a three-month backlog of 400 pending artwork designs in just a few hours.
Unilever evaluated a number of options to improve the speed and output quality of its artwork production process, ensure consistent barcode compliance and facilitate the "on-demand" online printing process, which until recently was duplicating the data and increasing the risk of errors. After a rigorous evaluation process, Kallik's AMS Trade was selected, primarily for its functionality, ease of use, and low risk implementation process (zero impact on existing systems). The application, which utilises data published by Unilever's existing SAP system, was deployed in under four weeks.
Peter Garratt, Packaging Technician Unilever Deo RTC Europe, comments:
Kallik's AMS Trade solution is exceptionally simple to use, perfect for non-technical users wishing to generate a TUC label artwork in seconds.
What's more, we now have one consistent record as the source for both on-line labelling and off-line printing needs."
Reflecting on the application's flexibility, Kumar Abraham, Packaging Development Manager, Unilever Deo RTC Europe comments, "The Kallik AMS Trade application can handle complex multi-lingual languages across Western Europe, CEE, and Asia Pacific Markets, as well as a broad range of secondary packaging. As such it is a scalable product capable of facilitating Unilever's entire secondary packaging portfolio."
Neil Gleghorn, CEO, Kallik, said, "Kallik understands how printed packaging errors can slow and even prevent products getting to market - the risk of a product recall due to barcode and content errors on secondary packaging are high, and with acceptable tolerances becoming ever smaller, the associated risks will only increase."
Gleghorn added, "The manual creation of artwork on Macs and PC's only increases this risk further. By automating the whole artwork creation process, we significantly reduce the risk of errors and facilitate the process reduction times witnessed at Unilever. I believe that it is important to have a secondary packaging artwork process that supports efficiency drives within a primary packaging artwork process. The faster, more accurately and consistently secondary artworks can be produced, the lower the risk to planned strategies for product availability in store."
Gleghorn concluded, "We're very excited to be working with Unilever and incredibly pleased with the results AMS Trade has achieved for Unilever's secondary packaging processes and look forward to continuing our relationship to implement AMS Trade in further Unilever plants."
Kallik's own research estimates that 80% of all packaging artwork requires amendments and that 65% of companies' time in product development lifecycle is spent in packaging and artwork management activities. This high error rate is incredibly time consuming to rectify and costs UK companies millions of pounds a year.
About Kallik
Founded in 2001, Kallik, www.kallik.com is an artwork management solutions provider whose mission is to deliver solutions to businesses intent on reducing cycle time, complexity and costs related to artwork production, approval and management. Its collaborative business solutions streamline the packaging production process from design through to print stages, ensuring the consistency and compliance of all content data with regulatory and commercial requirements. Whilst relevant for all industries that are involved in the sale of packaged products, Kallik brings significant time and cost saving benefits to those vertical markets that are particularly relevant to packaging, such as the cosmetics, healthcare, food and beverage, chemical and pharmaceutical industries.
Media Contact,
Say Communications Ltd:
Louise Stewart-Muir
+44 20 8971 6417
lstewartmuir@saycomms.co.uk
Neil Gleghorn
CEO Kallik
+44 1827 265706
neil.gleghorn@kallik.com
www.kallik.com
