Digital Logbooks: A Game-Changer for Nutrawise Health & Beauty

In 2010, Darren and Patty Rude founded Nutrawise Health & Beauty, LLC — developer of a variety of health and wellness supplements. Having passion for the wellness industry, they built the company on the mission statement “We believe that by creating products that embody the best that science and nature can offer, looking and feeling your best at every stage of life can become a way of life.”

Since its inception, Nutrawise has evolved into one of the largest manufacturers of collagen (a protein that serves as the primary building block of skin, muscles, bones, and connective tissues) and turmeric (a spice with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties) in the United States. Nutrawise’s portfolio of innovative wellness products in little square bottles continues to experience rapid growth.

Of course, no manufacturing operation developing regulated products is complete without logbooks — and lots of them. Manufacturing logbooks are a critical component of accurately tracking and documenting everything across the spectrum of manufacturing and quality. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was firm about this guideline in its 21 CFR Part 211.182 regulation, requiring a written record of equipment cleaning, maintenance, and use.

Nutrawise has been successful in staying fully compliant with this regulation as evidenced by the stacks of manufacturing logbooks out on the shop floor, in filing cabinets, and tucked away in storage rooms. Given the myriad of challenges that accompany paper logbooks, the staff at Nutrawise has had its share of issues fulfilling the logbook requirement.

As luck would have it, Nutrawise’s senior manager for electronic quality management system Anthony E. Contreras was at Masters Summit 2022, MasterControl’s premier annual users conference, where product managers gave a demonstration of MasterControl Logbooks. In brief, this electronic logbook software enables you to build, issue, execute, and review manufacturing logbooks in a 100% digital format across your organization — taking paper completely out of the picture. On the whole, with MasterControl Logbooks, logbook management is:

• More efficient.
• More accurate.
• Error-free.
• Compliant with data integrity requirements.
• Compliant with good documentation practice (GDP) guidelines.

When Contreras saw the demo, he immediately got on board as an early adopter of the electronic logbook software. MasterControl recently spoke with Contreras about his and the company’s experience in transitioning from paper to digital logbooks.

Pre-Electronic Logbook Software Challenges

Out of the gate, Contreras stated that the main contributor to all of Nutrawise’s manufacturing logbook challenges was paper, which caused difficulties such as:

• Laborious reviews of every entry and signature in several 250+-page logbooks.
• GMP requirements for people to gown up before entering sterile areas to review logbooks.
• Locating logbooks that mysteriously disappear.
• Inaccurate time entries from staff rounding to the nearest quarter-hour time.

“We’ve had audit observations for certain things that would be almost impossible to do with manual, paper-based manufacturing logbooks,” said Contreras. “Errors are common in paper logbooks and issues often escalated to GDP and GMP [good manufacturing practice] infractions.”

How Logbook Software Alleviated the Challenges

MasterControl Logbooks resolved these and many other challenges, alleviating the headaches Nutrawise staff were having with their manufacturing logbooks. Contreras highlighted one feature of the electronic logbook software that he particularly enjoys, which is the ability to view logbooks from anywhere at any time.

“I can be in a meeting and instantly find out if samples were received without having to find and flip through a large logbook — and the data is in real time,” he said.

Executives at Nutrawise have always been eager to adopt new technologies to continually improve the company’s processes. The electronic logbook software became available at a pivotal time when the company was growing and needing a way to remove production hurdles.

Also, during the global pandemic, organizations were conducting various types of audits remotely. This meant that reports and other documents needed to be available in digital format. Before implementing MasterControl Logbooks, the staff at Nutrawise scanned every page of every logbook to get digital versions.

“[With electronic logbook software] you’re not bound by the limitations of paper logs,” Contreras said. “You no longer have inefficiencies or have to store boxes of paper documents in warehouses.”

MasterControl Logbooks releases in early May 2024 with a variety of features that will simplify, streamline, and relieve the headaches of managing manufacturing logbooks. Click here to read the full Q&A with Nutrawise’s Anthony E. Contreras.