Lehning Laboratories

Lehning Laboratories has chosen the ZetesAtlas solution combined with the MD-9000 system for package marking and the application of tamper-proof labels in order to comply with the new Falsified Medicines Directive concerning herbal medicine.

Aim:


  • To comply with the new Falsified Medicines Directive concerning herbal medicine and to guarantee the authenticity of the products for customers

Solution:


  • ZetesAtlas packaging execution solution combined with the MD-9000 automatic system to mark the packages and apply tamper-proof labels to packages of multiple formats.

Results:


  • Complete traceability of herbal product
  • Major reduction in breakdown rates, from 19% to below 3%
  • Higher marking performance on the manufacturing and packaging lines
  • Guarantee of fully tamper-proofed and authentic products

Created in 1935, Lehning Laboratories is a French pioneer in the field of natural herbal treatments. 35 tonnes of fresh plants are delivered to the site each year, for use in the manufacture of products in various formulations: granules, tablets, liquids. Transformed into active ingredients, they go into a variety of natural healthcare products for consumers (medicaments, food supplements, cosmetics, etc.) sold in pharmacies, drugstores, health food stores, or supermarkets.

In the production workshops of the Lehning Group, every possible care is taken to ensure perfect quality and flawless traceability of the phytotherapy products, with a wide range, from granules to solid or liquid products. For the liquid products, packaged in a bottle, Lehning Laboratories recently had to make some major changes because of the new traceability regulations imposed.

Lehning Laboratories
 

Herbal medicine subject to regulations

Within the framework of the new Falsified Medicines Directive now applied to herbal medicine products, Lehning Laboratories was obliged to add a tamper-proof label to its packages to prevent any tampering. To satisfy this requirement, Lehning Laboratories called on Zetes, an expert in traceability and operational process optimisation solutions.

The solution implemented incorporates the ZetesAtlas PES (Packaging Execution System), combined with the MD-9000 automatic labelling system. The Zetes solution is installed on the liquid product manufacturing and packaging lines at Lehning Laboratories, marking 100% of the bottles in multiple formats using tamper-proof labels, so that customers can be sure the authenticity of their products is guaranteed. "ZetesAtlas has allowed us to centralise all of our production requirements, the marking of legal notices on our packages (Batch Number, expiry date, and Datamatrix) and the application of tamper-proof labels, which has become essential," says Virginie Pietrowski, Production Manager at Lehning Laboratories.

A choice that is both decisive and positive

Virginie Pietrowski says: "We could have chosen manual addition, but in view of the volumes, that would have been far too complicated. We therefore decided to replace and upgrade our old systems with a new machine capable of both marking legal notices on our packaging (Batch Number, expiry date, and Datamatrix) and applying tamper-proof stickers to comply with these new regulations." Given the complex nature of the project, the Group consulted several service providers, with a very precise specification. Only Zetes was able to meet their requirements, and the result measured up to their expectations. "The timing was spot on, and we were even one day ahead of the initial schedule. Within a week, the whole system was installed and the ZetesAtlas solution was fully operational," adds Virginie Pietrowski.

Facing up to challenges with ZetesAtlas

In the liquid product production and packaging workshop, Zetes had to address some major challenges. Bottle sizes range from 30 to 250 ml, and the standards governing packaging and product traceability are highly complex. A challenge successfully dealt with, thanks to ZetesAtlas software. Combined with the MD-9000 automatic system, it allows Lehning Laboratories to perform inkjet marking and apply tamper-proof labels. With its open and non-proprietary architecture, the solution now provides fast and easy identification of all products directly on the packaging lines. It will ultimately allow Lehning Laboratories to serialise and aggregate their herbal medicine products. Moreover, for future needs, thanks to its unique Human-Machine Interface, ZetesAtlas will be able to control the configuration of any equipment anywhere on the packaging line.

A trained and totally autonomous team

All of the operators and all technicians in charge of maintenance have been trained at Lehning Laboratories. Zetes installed the system and trained the teams. "After working on many projects, we have noticed real added value concerning the know-how and the professionalism on Zetes employees. In just a few days, our teams managed to program the MD-9000 machine completely independently. In addition, ZetesAtlas is very intuitive, so we were soon able to develop new programs to personalise our labels and easily create new printing templates for the various products to be identified (bottle sizes, font, type of visual, etc.)." Virginie Pietrowski points out.

Full traceability
 

A scalable system with a view to serialisation

According to Guillaume Vicot, Country Manager for Zetes France, "The ZetesAtlas solution has another advantage: all the ways you can upgrade the system. For Lehning Laboratories, which covers other markets such as Russia, new obligations concerning the serialisation of herbal medicine products, will soon be imposed. An option that is turning out to be highly beneficial to the Group, which is therefore already prepared for the changes required by this future regulation."

The satisfaction of a completed project

"Since starting to use ZetesAtlas, we have obtained better performance from our production and packaging lines. The improvement is significant: our breakdown rates have fallen from 19% to below 3% in barely two months." enthuses Virginie Pietrowski.

Since starting to use ZetesAtlas, we have obtained better performance from our production and packaging lines. The improvement is significant: our breakdown rates have fallen from 19% to below 3% in barely two months." Virginie Pietrowski.

 

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