3M INDUSTRIAL SERVICES & SOLUTIONS

About Us

3M™ Industrial Services & Solutions is focused on optimizing the performance of your packaging-related processes to deliver on critical business needs–from speeding time-to-market, to reducing packaging cost, to enabling compliance, to managing product surety within your entire organization–and all with single source accountability for project implementation. 3M™ has taken it’s best practices, along with it’s experience with over 55,000 products in more that 60 countries, and developed 3M™ Integrated Packaging Tool.

A way to integrate, manage, automate and update all of your packaging information, 3M™ Integrated Packaging Tool is an easy-to-access, easy-to-manage web-based application. It provides a secure, central repository for all your packaging graphics, text and templates, plus specs for virtually every customer, distributor, regulator and carrier anywhere you do business.

3M™ Integrated Packaging Tool integrates with legacy systems, ERP and CRM software, graphic packages, and many other systems bringing all packaging systems together while managing structure, text, graphics, and language translations. 3M™ Integrated Packaging Tool is available as a subscription service or as a software license.

Enable Compliance

3M™ Integrated Packaging Tool manages internal and external requirements including brand usage, customer requirements, regulatory information and legal requirements. And because it’s web-based, this information can be accessed, updated and distributed to everyone on your team (employees and suppliers) at any time.

Speed Time-To-Market

As a data-enabled system, 3M™ Integrated Packaging Tool helps to ensure all functional areas of an organization are using the same up-to-date information including packaging specifications, packaging artwork, and business rules, as well as adhering to approval timelines when launching new products or trying to get to market faster. By eliminating data silos and centralizing all packaging information and customer requirements, brand consistency is maintained and time-to-market is accelerated.

Reduce Packaging Cost

3M™ Integrated Packaging Tool optimizes the procurement of packaging materials and services by centralizing all packaging information, linking packaging specifications to bill of materials, and providing visibility into the detail of packaging procurement. This integrated packaging management tool brings together disparate systems, enabling global collaboration and maintenance of reportable historical packaging information to optimize packaging spend.

Manage Product Surety

A centralized repository of all packaging and labeling information, 3M™ Integrated Packaging Tool helps enable product safety by utilizing correct packaging information including managing ingredients, text, graphics, translations and customer requirements. Efficient and effective product tracking and tracing capabilities enable authorized users to recall tainted products or packaging with errors by pulling reports on product location, which are tracked throughout the distribution channel.

Packaging Scenarios

RETAIL COMPLIANCE SCENARIO

Situation:
Packaged goods manufacturer fined by retailer for non-compliance. Re-do process produces additional negative effect of margins as manufacturer has to:

• Pick up product from retailer.
• Change artwork, re-route for approvals, overlabel.
• Re-pack.
• Re-ship to retailer.

Solution:
With 3M™ Integrated Packaging Tool, all business rules and requirements (bar code, label position, type size, etc.) archived, tracked and integrated. Compliance enabled.

REGULATORY COMPLIANCE SCENARIO

Situation:
FDA arrives to audit major manufacturer of prescription drugs. Because 3M Integrated Packaging Tool was in place:

• Labeling was achieved and documented.
• Business rules were enforced.
• Printing history was tracked and stored (including discarded labels).
• Electronic records and signatures were stored in compliance with FDA.

Solution:
FDA provided complete audit trail of packaging process at click of a button.

PRODUCT TRACKING AND TRACING SCENARIO

Situation:
Food manufacturer uncovers bad batch. Attempts to locate and retrieve product prove to be time-consuming and costly due to:

• Various pack-outs onto multiple palettes.
• Palettes split out and shipped to multiple DCs.
• Placed on multiple trucks for delivery
• Delivered to multiple retailers.

Solution:
With 3M Integrated Packaging Tool, information scanned, archived, integrated and updated at every milestone, making recall fast, efficient, pinpoint accurate.