Global life sciences and material sciences company DSM provides clear evidence of meeting industry regulations, through the use of EMC Documentum D2.
Sharing its case study at EMC Momentum 2012, DSM said it was first introduced to Documentum in 1999, but underwent a new Documentum D2 project in 2010.
DSM specialises in the production of health, nutrition and materials. For example, it produces nutritional ingredients for feed, food and personal care, anti-invectives, sustainable high-performance materials, nylon, bio-chemicals and bio-medical materials.
Matty Westveer, from DSM, said that due to the nature of DSM’s business, the company needs to be complaint with several industry regulations and it needs to show clear evidence of this.
What was the aim?
DSM’s aim was to trace a document from creation to destruction and show the lifecycle of that document.
It needed to control the creation and the distribution of a document, increase productivity and reduce training time with single source content. DSM also planned to reduce its eco-footprint, through a reduction in the amount of paper it used.
In addition to Documentum D2, DSM uses collaboration and intranet Microsoft SharePoint, for enterprise search autonomy IDOL, BPM and system integration software.
In conjunction with D2, DSM uses euroscript Delt Report Generator (eDRG) in order to create business intelligence (BI) reports based on its EMC Documentum data.
Matty Westveer said: “We started this project to avoid claims and to meet regularity requirements. This means we are assuring the DSM Licence to Operate and uniform DSM cGXP compliance. We are also reducing paper storage too.”
The solution
Mark Boon from DSM said in 2010 he first saw EMC’s Documentum D2, which was installed and deployed according to Good Automated Manufacturing Practice (GAMPS).
Westveer said the solution consists of a qualified base infrastructure layer and a document control solution. It is configured for lifecycle management and quality management systems.
Boon explained the technical details saying Documentum D2 is coupled with D2 3.1, D2 Plus Pack (C2, O2), Process Engine, Xplore, Interactive Delivery Service and DRG Reporting which goes to a publishing website.
Boon said: “It has powerful configuration – during the pilot phase it sets you up to 68% with users when setting up the application. There is limited unit testing and integration required, as there is not coding there. It supports short configuration cycles.”
Boon said on the D2 Client it is more task orientated to users and more user-friendly than Webtop.
In terms of configuration Boon said it was easy to learn and understand, as configuration specifications are generated: “It was almost seamless transport between DEV, QA and PROD environments," he said.
Looking to the future and lessons learned
Westveer said 2013 will see DSM roll out version 1.0 of its Documentum D2 project. Between 2013 and 2015, it will deliver subsequent releases with the aim of decommissioning the Legacy Documentum environment in 2015.
Boon said a few lessons have been learnt from the deployment of Documentum D2, the first being that just because an application seems easy to deploy, it does not mean that agreeing on user requirements is easy.
Secondly, achieving a standardised process requires top down enforcement. According to Westveer, DSM has six business groups and that means "six different opinions.”
She said it was necessary to get enforcement from the top of the business to get the whole company working on one line.
Clearly-defined contractual arrangements
Boon also added the importance of taking the validation strategy into your own control and to ensure that you set explicit rules for involved suppliers. In this area, it also important to ensure clearly-defined contractual arrangements and responsibilities with suppliers, according to Boon.
Peggy Ringhausen, group product manager at EMC, was present during DSM’s presentation and said there are three main themes at EMC Momentum 2012 - agility, intelligence and productivity.
“By agility, we mean the length of time it takes for users to meet requirements and the time to code," she said.
"By intelligence, we mean to increase efficiency, to manage and control your regulated content.
"By productivity, we mean how quickly it takes you to find and understand information, though users personalising their environments and getting the functionality that they need," Peggy Ringhausen added.