PTA / Success Stories / Bayer Crop Science

Calculation and worldwide provision of limit values for quality assurance in crop protection production

Company portrait

Bayer CropSciene – Competence and experience in crop protection
With its innovative products and pioneering know-how, Bayer CropScience AG is one of the world’s leading suppliers in the field of crop protection. The product range of Bayer CropScience Deutschland GmbH includes herbicides, fungicides, insecticides and seed treatment products as well as non-agricultural applications. These include, for example, products from the Environmental Science division for pest control in the home and garden or for commercial use. The portfolio is rounded off by the BioScience division, which makes a significant contribution to progress in the field of plant biotechnology with its intensive research. Formed in 2002 as a sub-group of Bayer AG with sales in the region of EUR 5.7 billion, 20,000 employees and offices in 122 countries, the company is one of the world’s leading innovative crop science companies with activities in crop protection, non-agricultural pest control, seeds and plant biotechnology. Bayer CropScience – a new company that already occupies top positions at the start. It ranks first worldwide for insecticides, second for fungicides and third for herbicides.

Quality assurance - limit values

Bayer CropScience has around 55 production plants worldwide, each with 2-20 production lines, in which crop protection products are filled or formulated, i.e. brought into the optimum commercial and user form with adjuvants and carrier substances.

The formulation and filling systems are used for various products (formulations). In the event of a product change, the systems must be cleaned to ensure product quality and avoid contamination. The contamination of products can lead to high financial losses and a loss of trust among customers and the public.

The collaboration

The application realized by PTA allows central data storage of all relevant data and prompt and efficient worldwide provision of the limit values relevant for the production facilities. The PTA's many years of experience and good cooperation with the end user have led to this success.

There are limit values for the permissible residue concentrations (ACL = Acceptable Concentration Level) that must not be exceeded when cleaning the systems during product changes. These limits apply worldwide and are calculated according to the official guidelines (ECPA, US EPA) and additional restrictive Bayer CropScience directives. The calculation is based on the so-called NOEL value (No Observable Effect Level, value at which no effect can be observed) for the most sensitive plant of the derived product, taking into account the application rate and an additional safety factor.

The limit values were previously provided using MS Excel-based data sheets, which were time-consuming and labor-intensive to create specifically for each production plant or production line. To improve this situation, a database with all the necessary information was planned, which can be maintained centrally and is available for information searches for all production sites worldwide. All changes to data that are included in the calculation of the limit values are logged to allow an audit.

The tasks of the PTA

PTA GmbH drew up an architecture recommendation taking into account the existing infrastructure and implemented the application on the basis of an existing requirements definition. The application was to be made available worldwide in the company network without additional installations for the end users. Since the existing Citrix terminal server infrastructure could be used, the decision was made in favor of a client-server application and against the other alternatives considered (web-based solutions with ASP.NET, J2EE or Oracle Forms 9i). The application was implemented in .NET, taking into account a separation of the layers of user interface, business logic and data storage in an Oracle database. The realization was carried out in a prototyping approach in close cooperation with the end user in English.

Project ID: 1202

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Calculation and provision

The limit values are calculated automatically and must be approved by a specialist user from central quality assurance before they appear in the evaluations. Unapproved limit values that are required for evaluations can be viewed by this specialist user. The current data was taken from Excel files. Changes to data that are included in the calculation of the limit values are logged for auditing purposes. The affected production sites can be automatically informed by e-mail when new limit values are available that affect them. Those responsible in the production facilities can maintain the data for their system themselves and create reports and interface files with all the limit values that affect them.

Customer testimonial

“The collaboration with PTA in this project was extremely pleasing. I would particularly like to emphasize the strong customer orientation (PTA always endeavored to understand user requirements and implement them in the application), the highly professional and reliable project planning (all agreed milestones were achieved on time and in high quality) as well as the high level of technical expertise in the implementation of the application, which has led to very good acceptance among users.”

Mr. Brauer, Head of the Non-SAP and eBusiness Projects Department

“Six weeks after going live, we already had more than 160 users worldwide who use this application for their daily work. actively use. The worldwide provision of consistent information stimulated intensive technical discussions, which ultimately lead to a uniform and higher level of quality assurance.”

Dr. Hüttelmaier, QHSE Systems & Quality Management Department

Calculation and worldwide provision of limit values for quality assurance in crop protection production

Company portrait

Quality assurance - limit values

The collaboration

The tasks of the PTA

Project ID: 1202

Calculation and provision

Customer testimonial

Have we sparked your interest?

Ole Knudsen

Key Account Manager

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Company

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Calculation and worldwide provision of limit values for quality assurance in crop protection production

Company portrait

Quality assurance - limit values

The collaboration

The tasks of the PTA

Project ID: 1202

Calculation and provision

Customer testimonial

Have we sparked your interest?

Ole Knudsen

Key Account Manager

Contact

Company

Service

Social

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