Somewhere in the back office
A customer complaint arrives about a jar of night cream bought several months ago. You want to look at your own retained sample of that batch, to compare it with the customer's photo. Retained samples go into boxes on shelving in the back office. Each box is roughly labelled by month. The batch in question was made in a busy spell, and its sample is not in the box for that month. It turns up two boxes along, labelled in handwriting that has faded.
Meanwhile, the shelves are full of samples from years ago that nobody has dared throw away.
Retaining is easy, finding is hard
Keeping a sample of each batch is simple. What goes wrong is everything after it goes on the shelf.
- Samples are labelled by hand, with varying detail.
- Boxes are organised by month, loosely.
- Nobody records where each sample is stored.
- Retention periods are known but not applied, so shelves overflow.
- Samples of products made for brand clients are mixed in with your own.
What lost samples cost
When a question about a batch comes up, from a customer, a retailer or a brand client, the retained sample is often the most useful thing you have. Not finding it quickly, or at all, weakens your answer. Overflowing shelves take space, and throwing samples out without a record leaves you unsure what you still have. How many samples you keep, and for how long, is for you and your adviser to decide. We keep the register of what is there.
Brand clients raise the stakes. When you manufacture for other brands, they may ask you to check a retained sample against a complaint their customer has made, and they expect an answer quickly. Admitting that the sample cannot be found is an uncomfortable conversation with a client whose products carry your manufacturing.
A retained sample register
- When a batch is filled, the system prints a retained sample label from the batch record, with the product, batch number, fill date and a barcode.
- The sample is scanned into a storage location: room, shelf and box, each with its own label.
- Searching by batch number, product or date shows exactly where each sample is.
- Each product type has a retention period you set, and the register lists samples that have passed it.
- Disposal is recorded by scanning, with the date and who did it, so you know what has gone and what remains.
- Samples for brand clients are marked with the client, and can be handled under the arrangement you have with them.
| Question | Answered now by | With the register |
|---|---|---|
| Where is the sample of batch 3184? | Searching boxes | Room, shelf and box |
| What can we throw away? | Nobody is sure | List past your retention period |
| Did we dispose of that one? | Unknown | Disposal record with date |
| Which samples are a brand client's? | Mixed in | Marked with the client |
Answers from the shelf
When a question about a batch comes in, the sample is found by searching, and it is on the desk while the question is still fresh. The shelves are cleared regularly, with a record. Brand clients' samples are handled as agreed. And the register links to the batch record, so the sample, the batch record and any complaints about that batch are all a click apart.
Setting it up takes some effort for existing samples, which need labelling and scanning into place once. After that, it is a scan at filling and a scan onto the shelf.
Sound familiar?
- Retained samples are in boxes labelled by month.
- Finding one takes a search.
- Shelves are full of samples past any retention period.
- Disposal is not recorded.
- Brand client samples are mixed with your own.