For brands
You own the product and not the plant. Marketplaces, retailers and distributors each ask for the same evidence in a different shape, and it is the same file underneath.
Solutions
Four doors into the same file.
Everyone who makes, moves or sells a consumer product owes paperwork to somebody and is owed paperwork by somebody else. Which direction that runs is the only thing that changes between these four, and it is the same record underneath all of them. Pick the one that sounds like your week.
No card, no account, and no call to book. Tell us what you make and where you sell it, and we will come back to you.
By layer
Where you sit in the chain
One line of what actually hurts at that layer, and the door it opens. The full argument lives behind each one rather than twice.
For manufacturers
Every customer asks for the same paperwork in a different format. Answer all of them from one place, in an hour.
For ingredient suppliers
Every customer asks for the same twelve statements in twelve different formats. Answer once, and keep answering from the same record.
For importers and distributors
You sign for the product before you control its paperwork. Know what your market requires before you commit, and have the evidence arrive assembled instead of chased.
Sitting in two of these at once is normal, and it is not a different product. An account is whatever its own records say it is, so a company that makes some of what it sells gets both directions on one file without choosing a category on the way in.
The shape of it
The same middle, four directions
What arrives at your layer, what the department does with it, and what you hand to whoever is asking. Read the middle column four times: it does not change, because it is one record and one engine underneath all of these.
In
What arrives
- Your manufacturer's test reports
- Your own label artwork and specification
- A marketplace, retailer or distributor asking for evidence
The middle
What the department does
- Read it and place it, or say plainly it could not be placed
- Match it against the rules that apply, with the citation on every line
- Keep it current, and name what is missing before somebody asks for it
The same engine, whichever door you came in through
Out
What you hand back
- The evidence the reviewer asked for, with the rule it answers
- A pack assembled from what you already hold
- A request your manufacturer can answer without an account
Who is asking: A marketplace, a retailer, a distributor, an auditor
In
What arrives
- Your own lab results, lot by lot
- Your certificates and audit reports
- A customer asking for the same result in their own shape
The middle
What the department does
- Read it and place it, or say plainly it could not be placed
- Match it against the rules that apply, with the citation on every line
- Keep it current, and name what is missing before somebody asks for it
The same engine, whichever door you came in through
Out
What you hand back
- A certificate composed from measurements you already recorded, signed by a named person
- A standing link per customer that shows the current document, with nothing to reissue
- The same answer written back into a buyer's own form, in their file
Who is asking: Every customer who buys from you
In
What arrives
- Your specification and your own written statements
- Your certificates, and the dates they run out on
- A customer questionnaire, again
The middle
What the department does
- Read it and place it, or say plainly it could not be placed
- Match it against the rules that apply, with the citation on every line
- Keep it current, and name what is missing before somebody asks for it
The same engine, whichever door you came in through
Out
What you hand back
- One statement library, answered once and reused
- A link that stays current when the document behind it changes
- The questionnaire returned in the asker's own file, with anything missing named
Who is asking: Every brand and manufacturer who buys from you
In
What arrives
- A supplier's file for a product you are considering
- The markets you would sell it into
- Whatever paperwork came with it, in whatever shape it came in
The middle
What the department does
- Read it and place it, or say plainly it could not be placed
- Match it against the rules that apply, with the citation on every line
- Keep it current, and name what is missing before somebody asks for it
The same engine, whichever door you came in through
Out
What you hand back
- What this market asks of that product, before you commit to it
- A plain list of what is missing, and who has to produce it
- The file assembled for your own review, kept current after it
Who is asking: Your own buyers, and whoever inspects the shipment
Same engine, four directions.
Whichever door you came through, the record underneath is one thing: what is required of your products, what you already hold, and what is missing.
No card, no account, and no call to book. Tell us what you make and where you sell it, and we will come back to you.