Illustration of the Rottendorf Pharma logo

A sweet pill to swallow 

“The Di­gi­tal Life Sci­en­ces team has been sup­port­ing us for ye­ars to make our pro­ces­ses more ef­fi­ci­ent and di­gi­tal. Over the past few ye­ars, we have thus been able to suc­cessful­ly im­ple­ment the GMP com­pli­ant do­cu­ment ma­nage­ment, Trai­ning Ma­nage­ment and and con­tract ma­nage­ment in our com­pa­ny tog­e­ther. We are hap­py to build on the po­si­ti­ve ex­pe­ri­en­ces with the Di­gi­tal Life Sci­en­ces team and curr­ent­ly have num­e­rous pro­jects in the pipe­line that will make our do­cu­men­ta­ti­on more di­gi­tal, traceable and cen­tra­li­zed. Di­gi­tal Life Sci­en­ces GmbH is a strong and long-term part­ner for us.”

Darstellung des Logos von Rottendorf Pharma GmbH
Dr. Ni­co­le Freise-Papke
Pro­cess Group Lea­der QA-Sys­tems (Rot­ten­dorf Phar­ma GmbH)

Rottendorf Pharma digitizes document control and employee training with QMS dls | eQMS 

Di­gi­tiza­ti­on is not witch­craft. Ra­ther a ra­ther sweet pill, pro­ves Rot­ten­dorf Phar­ma. Sin­ce the ever-ad­van­cing use of di­gi­tal sys­tems, the phar­maceu­ti­cal com­pa­ny from En­ni­ger­loh al­re­a­dy sa­ves a lar­ge num­ber of man-hours per year in em­ployee trai­ning alo­ne — thanks to the qua­li­ty ma­nage­ment sys­tem (QMS) dls | eQMS.

Film-coa­ted ta­blets, coa­ted ta­blets and cap­su­les: Rot­ten­dorf Phar­ma is a phar­maceu­ti­cal ser­vice com­pa­ny ba­sed in En­ni­ger­loh near Müns­ter that has spe­cia­li­zed in the de­ve­lo­p­ment, ma­nu­fac­tu­re and pack­a­ging of phar­maceu­ti­cals in so­lid do­sa­ge form sin­ce 1928. A com­pa­ny on cour­se for growth. The phar­maceu­ti­cal spe­cia­list now em­ploys more than 1,200 peo­p­le. Ho­we­ver, this de­ve­lo­p­ment also po­ses or­ga­niza­tio­nal chal­lenges for the com­pa­ny. For ex­am­p­le, in the ma­nage­ment of so-cal­led Stan­dard Ope­ra­ting Pro­ce­du­res (SOP). The­se are in­s­truc­tions that de­scri­be the stan­dar­di­zed hand­ling of pro­ces­ses — for cri­ti­cal are­as of the phar­maceu­ti­cal industry.

Man sitting in front of test tubes

“This red tape was really our largest pain point”

SOP ma­nage­ment cost Rot­ten­dorf Phar­ma time and ner­ves for ye­ars, be­cau­se it took place en­ti­re­ly on pa­per. Em­ployees jug­g­led over 900 in­s­truc­tions with up to 40 at­tach­ments each. They wal­ked mi­les around the com­pa­ny to get si­gna­tures and pass the do­cu­ments on to col­le­agues. They spent hours at the prin­ter and in ar­chi­ves when con­tent ch­an­ges were due. “This red tape de­ve­lo­ped into our lar­gest pain point,” re­calls Dr. Ni­co­le Frei­se-Pap­ke, Pro­cess Group Lea­der QA Sys­tems at Rot­ten­dorf Phar­ma. “To save re­sour­ces and ner­ves, we the­r­e­fo­re set out to find a spe­cia­list for di­gi­tiza­ti­on so­lu­ti­ons in the phar­maceu­ti­cal in­dus­try.” Rot­ten­dorf Phar­ma found what it was loo­king for with Di­gi­tal Life Sci­en­ces from Ge­scher near Münster.

Goodbye to miles of walking and wasted paper!

To sim­pli­fy the ma­nage­ment of SOP do­cu­ments, Rot­ten­dorf Phar­ma and Di­gi­tal Life Sci­en­ces have im­ple­men­ted a qua­li­ty ma­nage­ment sys­tem (QMS) cal­led dls | eQMS. This is a plat­form that, thanks to its mo­du­lar struc­tu­re, grows fle­xi­bly with com­pa­nies and sim­pli­fies num­e­rous tasks — around the clas­si­fi­ca­ti­on, struc­tu­ring, sto­rage, and ver­sio­ning of di­gi­tal in­for­ma­ti­on. At the he­art of the so­lu­ti­on at Rot­ten­dorf Phar­ma: the Do­cu­ment Con­trol mo­du­le. Em­ployees crea­te new SOPs with this mo­du­le. This is done much fas­ter than be­fo­re with the help of tem­pla­tes. The re­view, ap­pr­oval and re­lease cy­cle is also ac­ce­le­ra­ted. It is now also per­for­med wi­thin the QMS. Si­gna­tures are no lon­ger ap­pli­ed on pa­per, but elec­tro­ni­cal­ly. Ki­lo­me­ters of wal­king bet­ween de­part­ments are now a thing of the past. The same ap­pli­es to was­ted pa­per, which is a gre­at pain for more and more com­pa­nies in times of sus­tainable busi­ness. Mo­reo­ver, the soft­ware en­su­res transparency.

“Thanks to d3.life sciences, we gain full transparency in the qualification level of employees”

The on­boar­ding for new SOPs is also ac­ce­le­ra­ted. When a new in­s­truc­tion is cir­cu­la­ted, em­ployees re­cei­ve a mes­sa­ge as­king them to stu­dy the do­cu­ment. If they con­firm that they have read and un­ders­tood ever­y­thing, a green check mark ap­pears in a qua­li­fi­ca­ti­on ma­trix. “When it co­mes to SOP ma­nage­ment, we are now com­ple­te­ly pa­per­less thanks to the di­gi­tiza­ti­on so­lu­ti­on,” says Ms. Frei­se-Pap­ke. “As a re­sult, we gain full trans­pa­ren­cy on the qua­li­fi­ca­ti­on le­vel of em­ployees much fas­ter than be­fo­re. And that’s wi­t­hout prin­ted pa­per or con­fu­sing Ex­cel spreadsheets.” In the fu­ture, Rot­ten­dorf Phar­ma will the­r­e­fo­re also be di­gi­tiz­ing other ty­pes of do­cu­ments — again in clo­se co­ope­ra­ti­on with the ex­perts from Ge­scher. “We app­re­cia­te how much Di­gi­tal Life Sci­en­ces stri­ves to find the best pos­si­ble and tail­o­red so­lu­ti­on for our needs. That’s not so­me­thing to take for granted.”

Illustration of a microscope and a pipette

Digitization of GMP training saves 120 hours of work per year

Rot­ten­dorf Phar­ma is on cour­se for di­gi­tiza­ti­on. And es­tab­lishes the first com­pa­ny-wide e‑learning for so-cal­led Good Ma­nu­fac­tu­ring Prac­ti­ce (GMP) training.

In the past, GMP se­mi­nars were held re­gu­lar­ly in of­fices, and the do­cu­men­ta­ti­on of trai­ning and test re­sults was done la­bo­rious­ly by hand. To­day, the who­le pro­gram ta­kes place in the di­gi­tal sphe­re. This is made pos­si­ble by the la­test buil­ding block in Rot­ten­dorf Pharma’s di­gi­ta­liza­ti­on tool­box: e‑learning — a mo­du­le for di­gi­tal trai­ning of em­ployees. In­s­tead of tra­di­tio­nal class­room in­s­truc­tion, em­ployees use the mo­du­le to crea­te e‑learnings on va­rious to­pics, such as pro­ce­du­res in do­cu­men­ta­ti­on prac­ti­ce or hy­gie­nic hand wa­shing. Do­cu­ments, au­dio files and vi­de­os to il­lus­tra­te the lear­ning con­tent can be in­te­gra­ted with just a few clicks. The mo­du­le can also be used to de­sign a fi­nal exam in an equal­ly time-sa­ving man­ner — in­clu­ding ele­ments such as text ans­wers, clo­ze texts or puzzles.

QA em­ployees then pro­vi­de the pre­pared e‑learnings and the fi­nal exams to their col­le­agues from the re­spec­ti­ve de­part­ments via the task in­box. Ha­ving pas­sed the exams, the soft­ware au­to­ma­ti­cal­ly up­dates the team member’s qua­li­fi­ca­ti­on le­vel in the qua­li­fi­ca­ti­on ma­trix. This al­lows to see at a glan­ce if only em­ployees who have been de­mons­tra­b­ly suc­cessful­ly trai­ned are per­forming the re­le­vant ac­ti­vi­ties. “By im­ple­men­ting e‑learning for com­pa­ny-wide GMP trai­ning, we save about 120 man-hours per year,” ex­plains Dr. Frei­se-Pap­ke. “Af­ter this suc­cessful pi­lot pro­ject, we the­r­e­fo­re want to di­gi­ti­ze even more com­pa­ny-wide trai­ning in the future.”

Learn more about the E‑Learning software solution

Get a ho­li­stic over­view of our ver­sa­ti­le E‑Learning so­lu­ti­on now.

So­lu­ti­on: E‑Learning
Illustration of a notebook on which the e-learning of Digital Life Sciences is displayed