Specification Management is the process of building and collecting DNA-level information, or specifications, for products and packaging into a centralized system. Specification Management is the key to making products and packaging efficiently while also mitigating risks.
Today, the world is demanding more of products and packaging: they need to travel through different channels, reach destinations all over the world, be sustainable, meet ever evolving regulatory requirements, and keep up with changing consumer tastes.As a result, product variation has exploded – meaning more SKUs (stock keeping units), more suppliers, more departments, and ultimately, an explosion of data to manage.
From recalls, delayed launches, allowable waste, and more, most organizations weren’t equipped to keep up – until now. Specification Management enables companies to get the root of product and packaging related issues: their specification data.
Specification Management Solves 3 Fundamental Problems
Lack a common language around specifications
A lack of common language around specifications often results in miscommunication, errors, and SKU proliferation. Without a templated approach to spec creation, it’s challenging to work efficiently and get teams on the same page.
Have incomplete data or lack critical components
Data is often owned by many different departments and suppliers. Without a central source of information that updates in real-time to all necessary stakeholders, teams must manually request and search for data across other departments and suppliers. When all necessary product and packaging data is not readily available, it’s difficult to manage Bills of Materials (BOMs) and slows speed-to-market.
Not built for sharing
Before Specification Management, sharing specs often occurred via static formats, from emails, to spreadsheets, and even pen and paper. This made it virtually impossible to collaborate across departments and supply chains, as well as inhibiting supply chain visibility and traceability.
Specright: The First Patented Specification Data Management Platform
Specification Management is a new category of software, solving a problem that’s been around for decades.
At Specright, we’re working with some of the most established brands to help them reimagine how they make products to challenger brands who inherently want to disrupt the status quo. We’re passionate about Specification Data Management because it’s the right approach – and it enables people to spend more time doing what they love: making amazing products and delighting customers.
Specification Management platforms enable companies to digitize, map, and operationalize specifications along their supply chain. Digitization creates a single source of truth for how things are made and provides an audit trail of what changes were made, by what partner, and at what time. Mapping helps connect critical data - such as associating suppliers and vendor master data to specifications or finished goods. Existing vendor management software solutions or supplier onboarding tools miss these critical connection points. By connecting specifications to other critical data such as suppliers and facilities, organizations can create a digital thread using Specright as their supply chain platform.
Specright’s Specification Data Management platform has been issued a patent for the unique “many-to-many” data relationship structure, fundamental to the technology's functionality.
Without Specright, specification data is typically housed in an array of static systems – whether it’s email, spreadsheets, legacy systems, or shared drives. These static systems often result in siloed data that lacks the accessibility and standardization needed to function as a source of truth for the supply chain, inhibiting collaboration.
The many-to-many relationship structure enables companies to link together all the data related to making a product, from its packaging specifications, quality specifications, manufacturing specifications, and more. With the many-to-many data linkages, it’s easy to make and manage specification changes, as they automatically propagate through all shared linkages.
Specright’s patented many-to-many data structure has revolutionized the way the supply chain operates, enabling collaboration, resilience and agility.
Frequently Asked Questions
Have questions? Check out the FAQs below. For any questions not listed, reach out to us via our 'Contact Us' form.
Specification Management is the process of building and collecting DNA-level information for products and packaging into a centralized system. When you digitize and link specifications together, you create visibility and traceability across your supply chain. This makes it easy to layer on workflows, approvals, and processes. It’s not enough to simply digitize specifications; they need to be mapped and interconnected to drive intelligence. Specification Management also enables you to achieve outcomes like from improved supplier collaboration, sustainability, consolidating SKUs, and more.
Specification Management is also the title of the software category that Specification Data Management platforms are housed in.
What is Specification Data Management?
Specification Data Management (SDM) is the software foundation for all supply chain operations. When companies implement Specification Data Management software, downstream systems become smarter and more accurate. Specification Data Management software aids in the collection of specifications from all stakeholders, providing interconnected data that drives automation and intelligence. As a cloud-based SaaS platform, it’s easy to pass and share data with other systems and functions as a single source of truth for the entire supply chain.
What are product specifications?
Product specifications are all the data points needed for designing products. There should be enough information provided that a complete product can be built from a company’s product specs. These can range from product components such as packaging specifications, formula specifications or ingredient specifications all the way to finished product specifications, which make up a Bill of Materials, or BOM.
What are the major purposes of product specification?
The main purpose of product specifications are so the product team can detail exactly what they want the supply chain to produce. Specifications documents function as the communication medium between stakeholders during product development and serve as a contract of the expectations for production.
What should a specification include?
A specification includes any technical information regarding components of product design and supply chain considerations. For example, a food and beverage product spec sheet would include details on the recipe for the product, where ingredients are sourced from, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) standards, amongst other information. Specifications should reflect everything that is required to make a product; as such, regulations and compliance are a critical part of Specification Management.
What is product design specification?
A product design specification is anything from ingredients, to recipes, to packaging details, and manufacturing methods. Specifications house all of the crucial data needed to create the final product.
Why is Specification Management software important?
The premise of Specification Management is that everything should start with the DNA-level of products and packaging. But it’s not enough to simply digitize specifications; they have to be mapped and interconnected to drive intelligence – which can only be achieved with Specification Management software.
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