Chemical Manufacturing
Trace a drum back to the raw material lots that made it, hold the QC results that released it, and schedule the plant against real capacity.
A coatings, adhesives or specialty chemical producer gets asked two questions that general-purpose software answers badly: which raw material lots went into this drum, and what test results released it. WorkCell keeps both as transactions. Raw material arrives against a receiving lot that carries its certificate of analysis, issues to a production order preserve the link, and output is received as its own lot, so a finished lot resolves backward through every component lot, operator and test result. QC results are recorded against the lot at the operation, and a failing result puts it on hold rather than into a spreadsheet. The honest caveat up front: WorkCell is a discrete manufacturing system, not a process historian, and it has no formulation engine.
Coatings, inks, adhesives, sealants, resin and specialty chemical producers who batch and package discrete units, plus blenders and tollers running campaigns against customer specifications.
| Standard | What It Requires |
|---|---|
| ISO 9001 | The quality baseline customers and registrars audit against, covering identification and traceability, release of product, nonconforming output and corrective action. |
| REACH | Substances placed on the EU market must be registered and substances of very high concern declared, so composition exposure has to be answerable per material. |
| RoHS | Chemistries sold into electrical and electronic equipment need restricted-substance declarations held per material and passed downstream. |
| IATF 16949 | Automotive coatings and adhesives add PPAP submission, bulk material approval, lot traceability and a documented reaction plan on out-of-specification output. |
| GMP | Excipient and intermediate work adds controlled production records, defined release, retained samples and a documented deviation and investigation path. |
Each raw material receipt records the supplier lot and the certificate of analysis that came with it. Issuing it to a production order keeps the link, and the output is received as its own lot with its own test record. A customer complaint on one pail resolves backward to the component lots in it, the equipment it ran on, the operator who ran it and the QC results that released it, and forward to every other pail from the same batch. That forward query is what a recall or a containment call actually needs, and it is the one spreadsheets never answer completely.
Built from the QC results recorded against the finished lot, rather than retyped from a lab notebook into a template each time a customer asks.
Incoming certificates stored against the receiving lot, so they follow the material into every batch it feeds instead of living in a buyer's inbox.
The quantities actually issued and produced, the equipment used, the operators involved and the tests recorded, kept as the order's own history.
Severity-classified nonconformances with disposition, containment and the 8-D corrective action that closed them, linked to the lot that triggered it.
Most plants can eventually find what went into a batch. Almost none can say, quickly, every customer who received material from a suspect raw material lot. That query spans receiving, production, packaging and shipping records that were never joined, which is why a containment call turns into three days of reconciliation.
The lab logs results in its own spreadsheet, release is communicated by email or a sticker on the drum, and the production order closes regardless. Nothing stops material shipping before release, and nothing proves afterwards which results the release was based on.
Retained samples go on a shelf, expiry is written on the label, and the first-in-first-out rule holds until someone is in a hurry. Aged material gets consumed, retains get discarded before the liability window closes, and nobody notices until a customer asks for a retest.
One mixer, one mill, one filling line, and a changeover cost that depends on what ran before. A plan built in a spreadsheet assumes the vessel is clean and free. Without finite capacity scheduling, a sequencing mistake costs a wash-out and a delivery nobody warned the customer about.
Raw material to finished lot traceability
Receiving captures the supplier lot and its certificate, issues to a production order preserve the link, and output becomes its own lot. Backward and forward traceability come from the transactions, so a containment question is a query.
QC results and hold states on the lot
Inspection templates and AQL sampling plans define what gets tested. Results are recorded against the lot, and a failing result drives a QC hold rather than an email, so unreleased material is visibly unreleased.
Nonconformance and 8-D corrective action
An out-of-specification batch raises a severity-classified nonconformance with a disposition, and a repeat problem escalates into an 8-D corrective action with the whole chain attached to the lot it came from.
Finite capacity scheduling of the plant
The scheduler plans against real equipment and labor capacity instead of infinite capacity, and proposal runs let a planner test a campaign sequence before committing it. You see the knock-on before you promise a date.
Inventory in pieces with unit conversion
Stock is tracked as discrete units — drums, pails, totes, sacks — with conversion between the unit you buy, the unit you consume and the unit you sell. This suits packaged production and does not suit a continuously metered process.
Shop floor terminals and job costing on one record
Operators clock on, record quantity produced and scrapped, and enter test results where the work happens. The cost of a batch and the record that proves it come from the same entry.
Lot traceability from receiving through packaging and shipment, with QC hold states.
QualityTest records, severity-classified nonconformances and 8-D corrective action.
ProductionFinite scheduling of mixing, milling and filling, with terminals capturing actuals.
PurchasingSupplier catalog, receipts against lots, and incoming certificates held on the receipt.
Purchasing, inventory, scheduling, production and job costing on one database.
QMSTest records, hold states, nonconformances and corrective action tied to the lot.
MESTerminals capturing produced quantity, scrap and results where the batch runs.
APSFinite capacity scheduling of shared vessels and filling lines with changeover cost.
Resin and compound lot control through moulding and extrusion.
REACHWhat the regulation requires and which declarations WorkCell keeps for it.
ISO 9001The traceability, release and corrective action records the standard asks for.
SemiconductorsProcess chemistries consumed under step-level lot traceability.
Can WorkCell manage our formulas and recipes?
No. Formula and recipe management, scaling a batch by assay, and potency-adjusted ingredient calculations are not built. WorkCell holds a versioned bill of material and routing per product and the lot genealogy of what was actually consumed, so keep your formulation where it lives today.
Is WorkCell a process ERP or a discrete ERP?
Discrete. It tracks inventory in pieces with unit conversion, which fits batch-and-package operations making drums, pails and totes. A continuously metered plant with tank farms, meters and a process historian at its centre is not what WorkCell was built for, and we will say so.
How do you handle safety data sheets and GHS labelling?
WorkCell stores documents against items and lots, so an SDS can be held and found with the material it belongs to. It does not author SDSs, classify hazards, or generate compliant GHS shipping labels under 29 CFR 1910.1200; that stays with your regulatory tooling.
Can we trace every customer who received a suspect raw material lot?
Yes, and that forward query is the point. Receipts, issues, production output and shipments all preserve the lot link, so one suspect incoming lot resolves to the batches it fed, the finished lots those produced, and the shipments that carried them.
Does WorkCell track shelf life and expiry dates?
Lots can be held, quarantined and reported on, and documents including certificates stay attached to them. There is no packaged expiry engine that blocks consumption of aged material or drives retain disposal automatically, so confirm that gap against your own shelf-life discipline before committing.
See it run on your parts.
Tell us how you batch, test and release today and we will tell you straight whether WorkCell is a fit.