Orion Corporation is a global pharmaceutical company headquartered in Espoo, Finland. Orion develops, manufactures, and markets human and veterinary pharmaceuticals and active pharmaceutical ingredients, which it sells in over 100 markets around the world. The company has eight production sites in Finland, France, and Belgium, and sales offices in 27 European countries, and six countries in the APAC region. Its five divisions - innovative medicines, branded products, generics & consumer health, animal health and fermion - generated EUR 1.5 billion in sales and EUR 400 million in profit in 2024.
Orion's Packaging Technology Department is responsible for printed secondary materials, including artwork management. The department's design team create and update artwork based on requests, and a team of secondary material specialists manages the overall process. As packaging represents the first - and the last - interaction customers have with Orion's brand, its accuracy and appearance matters. So, an in-house development team conducts transportational studies to make sure products can reach customers without being damaged along the way, regardless of how far they're transported. These studies also test whether packaging can withstand warehouse processing and handling by packing robots. And in line with Orion's focus on sustainability, packaging now includes recycling instructions, so customers understand how they can dispose of it responsibly.
Prior to implementing Loftware Smartflow, Orion used a legacy system to cover its regulatory process, master data management, and artwork management. However, this system was nearing the end of its lifecycle, and the new version would require significant customization to meet the rigorous standards of the pharmaceutical industry. The team was looking for a solution that could automate artwork management workflow, including master data management, and that could work in an SAP environment. After a thorough selection process involving five vendors, Orion selected Loftware Smartflow.
Because of Orion’s diverse product portfolio, it has multiple artwork management processes. In the previous system, each process was described and documented in multiple, different instructions, which were then drawn into several process flows. This created an environment where the outcome of a process could rely on the person who interpreted the information.
With Loftware Smartflow, the team could translate these different processes into workflows. This exercise gave the team the opportunity to go through all its processes and streamline them as they created them in the system. Orion could then harmonize their processes, and the system’s workflow support gave them consistency in their processes.
Our previous system was basically a ‘jack of all trades, but master of none’ solution.
Erika Saarinen
Development Manager & Team Leader
Orion's previous system didn't offer process supporting tools or automation capabilities. This meant that a process could not move forward without human interaction.
Each handoff was manual, and the end user needed to make sure all the requirements for each step were fulfilled. Even integrations required the end user to create a manual integration trigger to move data from one system to another. In addition to being time-consuming, this manual approach increased the risk of error.
In Loftware Smartflow, workflows are automated to minimise human interaction. Integrations are built into the workflow, and the end user can trigger these if needed. Orion has integrated Smartflow with SAP and its Regulatory Information System (RIMS).
Smartflow triggers secondary material management actions in SAP. RIMS sends artwork change request data to Smartflow and, at the end of the artwork process, Smartflow sends a link back to RIMS containing the finalized and approved artwork.
Orion has further automated its processes using Robotic Process Automation (RPA) actions triggered by different tasks. For example, one robot fetches documents from the document management system and uploads them to Smartflow. Another one extracts version implementation information from Smartflow and transfers it to SAP.
Smartflow has really transformed our way of working, bringing structure and efficiency to our processes.
Erika Saarinen
Development Manager & Team Leader
