Product specifications

Product specifications enable user to specifiy rules and requirements on ingredients.

For example:

• Salt quantity have to be lower than 2%
• I don't want Frencg eggs
• Specific ingredient labeling rules

To create a produc specification, you must go to Administration beCPG > Product specifications

Product specification creation

Once in the product specifications folder, create the specification ("create" > "Product specification").

Regarding product specifications:

• Properties : to rename your product specification, to define a compatibility criteria, and associate your product specification to another one. For example: create a product specification for France and link it to an anti-doping product specification.

• Documents : to import documents and link them to your product specification.

• Labeling rules : create specific labeling rules.

• Non compatible products : check the list of non compatible products, as specified by the Forbidden ingredients section rules and the compatibility criteria. This section is not displayed by default. If you need it, go to Repository > System > Entity templates > Quality templates > Product specification and click "Add a List". Then, add "Non compatible products" and give your list the same name.

• Forbidden ingredients : create alerts when a product contains something claimed as forbidden here.

Product specifications are refreshed and applied every day at 11 PM. If you want to apply your modification at anytime, you could use the Formulate button.

Associate a product to a product specification:

To assign a specification to a product, edit properties and go to product specification. Then search for your specification in the list and save the properties.

Forbidden ingredients

Forbidden ingredients are used in beCPG to raise alerts if a forbidden ingredient is used in the composition.

To define forbidden ingredients, go to Repository> Quality> Product specifications. Press « Create » and select « Folder ».

A form appears in order to name the product specification. Fill it and press « Save ». Go to « Forbidden ingredients » list and press « Add ». Now, you can complete the information related to one or more forbidden ingredients:

• Requirement level : if the ingredient is authorized, forbidden or if it’s a simple information related to the product ;
• Message : a free text field which will pop up in the composition when the alert is raised;
• Maximum value : maximum threshold authorized for the ingredient ;
• GMO : if the GMOs are forbidden or not ;
• Forbidden ionization: if the ionization is forbidden or not ;
• ingredients : many can be selected ;
• Geographical origins : it can be forbidden to use certain ingredients from certain countries ;
• Required geographical origins ;
• Biological origins: some raw materials ingredients can be forbidden.

Press « Save » to save the form.

In order to use this specification, go to product properties (Properties> Edit properties) and then to Formulation> Product specification and choose the specification by clicking on the dropdown list.

If an ingredient, specified as « Forbidden » in the product specification, is added to a product recipe, by going to the product composition and by pressing the advancement logo, an alert will appear.

Non compatible products

WARNING : make sure the Non-compatible section is displayed.

Once your forbidden ingredients are set, it could seem very difficult to know exactly which raw materials are concerned. That is why "Non compatible products" is available on your product specification.

First, you have to choose the entities to consider. To do so, go to Properties and fill the field "Compatibility Criteria".

You can choose any Entities (Finished product, Raw material,...) and as much as wanted.

On the example above, 2 forbidden ingredient rules were created: the first to forbid any raw material containing water, the second to forbid any raw material containing wheat.

To activate the rule, you have to go to "Properties" and clic on the "Applicate" icon. ( )

This is how we could generate the previous list in the "Incompatible Products" section, with every raw materials which are concerned with at least one of our rules in our example.

Of course, this section take into count others prohibitions, like geography origin.

TIPS : As this list includes a "Details of requirement" column with the chosen message, it's very important to set one in order to know precisely why one product is incompatible. It's highly recommanded also to make one rule for each prohibition, so as to make one message per prohibition. Indeed, in our previous example, we had the No water rule and No wheat rule, with their own message. If we had a single rule with both prohibition, we had only the possibility to have a single message for them both. So, the message would be less specific and less precise, as any product which contains at least water OR wheat would have shown the same message.

WARNING : the "Non compatible Products" section is not taking in count prohibtions with no defined Maximum value (%) for a forbidden ingredient only. If you want to forbid every product countaing the ingredient, no matter the proportions, you only have to write "0". To disable an ingredient prohibition without erasing it, you could just empty the Maximum value (%) section.

Labeling rules

Before reading this section, please read labeling rules.

In order to avoid creating rules specific for each product or each product template, it’s possible to define labeling rules, valid in every cases.

To define labeling rules, go to Repository> Quality> Product specifications. Click on « Create » and then, select « Folder ».

A form appears and allows you to mention the product specification. Fill it and press « Save ». Go to the « Labeling rules » list and press « Add ». Now, you can complete information related to the new labeling rule :

• Its internal name ;
• Its legal name ;
• Its formula ;
• Components concerned by this rule ;
• Language ;
• If the rule is active or not ;
• If the calculation is manual or not.

Note : to fill the form properly, please read labeling. Press « Save » to save this new rule.

Thus, when creating a new product and generating its labeling, this rule will be applied automatically (if the entity concerned by the rule is part of the product recipe).