Roche Products

Posted: 18.02.09  |  Created by: Do Something

Below is a synopsis of an Adobe case study featuring Roche. Click here for a full un-edited version.

At a glance

• Roche is part of the international F.Hoffman-La Roche Group, one of the world's leading suppliers of pharmaceuticals and diagnostics for healthcare
• for product shipments, Roche generates multiple customer documents, including invoices, purchase orders, consignment notes,and bar code labels
• after evaluating options to automatically generate customer-facing documents from SAP data, Roche standardised on Adobe
• the Adobe solution extracts relevant customer and product information from the transmitted SAP data and merges it with the appropriate document template
• the results have included speedy, reliable production of quality customer-facing documents improved customer service, minimisation of costs of pre-printed forms, administration requirements, IT burden and shipping delays, and consistency of corporate image across nine countries of operation.

Company profile

Roche Products Pty Limited in Australia is part of the international F.Hoffman-La Roche Group, one of the world's leading suppliers of pharmaceuticals and diagnostics for healthcare. The company:

• distributes Roche products in Australia
• manufactures vitamin supplements for distribution in Australia
• provides technical services and support for nine countries in the Asia/Pacific region.

Accurate, professional-looking customer documents that accompany product shipments reinforce the company's brand and reputation for quality. To streamline the creation of these documents and ensure consistency across multiple countries, Roche uses Adobe solutions.

For product shipments, Roche generates customer documents including invoices, purchase orders, consignment notes, and bar code labels. Roche automated document output more than two decades ago and more recently moved to SAP. A solution was then needed to leverage SAP data to automatically produce professional-quality documents for delivery to customers via mail, fax or electronically.

The solution had to support multiple languages in the Asia/Pacific region, including those with a double-byte character set. It also had to conserve bandwidth, by transmitting only the SAP data over the network, storing standard logos and templates on a local server in each country for merging.

'Paper-Less' strategy

After evaluating various options to automatically generate documents from SAP data, Roche made a strategic decision to standardise on Adobe solutions (known as JetFormat at the time) to create its customer-facing documents.

'Paper-Less' solution

Before shipping products, employees in each country use a local workstation to initiate a request from the SAP system in Australia. The Adobe solution extracts relevant customer and product information from the transmitted SAP data and merges it with the appropriate document template. To preserve bandwidth, standard document elements such as logos are stored on local servers. Completed documents can be printed, faxed or converted to Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) for delivery via e-mail.

Roche rolled out the solution one country at a time, localising the electronic document templates as necessary. "The Adobe solutions were easy to deploy and run without any intervention," said Bob Sarmany, Information Systems Manager. "We can easily and reliably generate hundred of thousands of customer-facing documents every year."

'Paper-Less' results

The Adobe solution has resulted in automated, streamlined and improved document creation with the following benefits:

• ability to quickly and reliably produce quality customer-facing documents deliverable on paper or electronically
• enhanced customer service through the rapid creation of professional-quality, easy-to-read shipping documents
• shipping delays eliminated
• consistent corporate image across nine countries ensured
• costs associated printing, distribution, warehousing and updating of forms avoided
• IT burden minimised due to low maintenance and rapid integration with SAP, freeing IT staff to innovate in other areas
• administrative requirements reduced.

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