Since 1928, Lubrizol Corporation, a Berkshire Hathaway company, has provided specialty chemistry to over 100 countries, with its technology powering half of the world's hybrid and electric vehicles and present in everyday products like hand sanitizer, medicines, toothpaste, and food packaging. Committed to sustainability and safety, Lubrizol pursues "zero accidents, zero errors, and zero harm", recognizing accurate labeling as essential for compliance and safety. To enhance efficiency and support its SAP implementation, Lubrizol integrated Loftware with its ERP systems to boost compliance, sustainability, and operational efficiency by 30%. The company's mission is to deliver sustainable solutions that advance mobility, well-being, and modern life.
En tant qu'entreprise de la chimie, nous sommes confrontés à des défis réglementaires et de conformité que la plupart des autres entreprises ne connaissent pas. Notre investissement continu et notre co-innovation avec Loftware et SAP continuent à produire des résultats forts et positifs.
Mark Ritchey
Analyste technique en chef pour les processus de RSC Business
As an international chemicals company, Lubrizol must comply with an extensive range of global labeling regulations along with specific customer requirements, such as labels that enable automation of raw material receipt and maintaining 18 different product certifications, many of which are displayed on its labels. Lubrizol’s regular mergers and acquisitions continue to create additional labeling changes and branding complexities such as displaying an acquired company’s logo alongside its own. The company must also maintain 18 different product certifications, many of which are displayed on its labels.
Lubrizol’s product expansion into new markets like India created additional labeling challenges, with global trade regulations mandating product registration prior to import. Lubrizol’s prior labeling space was not set up to accommodate these added requirements.
Previously, Lubrizol used pre-printed stock to satisfy GHS requirements, layering transport diamonds and blacking out irrelevant sections for each market. However, this method risked product rejection by regulatory authorities due to potential doubts about label accuracy. By integrating Loftware’s solution with SAP, Lubrizol can now print full-color labels in multiple languages, with the exact information needed for the region and customer in question.
Before integrating its labeling operations with SAP, Lubrizol's product and labeling data was housed in a variety of different systems. This made it difficult to update label data and check for accuracy prior to printing the labels. With Lubrizol's move to SAP as the company's primary ERP, Lubrizol was able to streamline their business process and support more than 90% of its operations, with all regulatory and safety data coming out of the system. Additionally, the company uses a global labeling application as an interface between SAP and Loftware Enterprise. This application presents a print preview that is generated by Loftware, so the operator can review the label data.
By moving from pre-printed stock to a full-color label solution, Lubrizol has achieved a savings of 30% in hardware, supply, and maintenance costs. The company reduced its label stock from 20 types of labels to five. Plus, the full-color solution also reduces manual processes for operators, who no longer need to swap out label stock. It gives the company far more flexibility in meeting labeling requirements. This move led to decreased error rate and reduced waste, contributing to overall savings in material costs.
Lubrizol plans to migrate all its business and labeling operations to the Cloud. This transition will simplify the company’s labeling processes by decommissioning the current labeling application which serves as an interface between SAP and Loftware Enterprise. Lubrizol will also implement SAP Labeling Scenarios, Process Label Request, and Adhoc Labeling Request support.
