Tag Archives: manual

Facility Considerations for Cultivation & Manufacturing: A Case Study

By David Vaillencourt
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The cannabis industry is growing and evolving at an unprecedented pace and regulators, consumers and businesses continually struggle to keep up.

Cannabis businesses: How do you maintain an edge on the market, avoid costly mistakes?

Case Study: Costly Facility Build Out Oversights

David Vaillencourt will be joining a panel discussion, Integrated Lifecycle of Designing a Cultivation Operation, on December 22 during the Cannabis Quality Virtual Conference. Click here to register. A vertically integrated multi-state operator wants to produce edibles. The state requires adherence to food safety practices (side note – even if the state did not, adherence to food safety practices should be considered as a major facility and operational requirement). They are already successfully producing flower, tinctures and other oil derivatives. Their architect and MEP firm works with them to design a commercial kitchen for the production of safe edibles. The layout is confirmed, the equipment is specified – everything from storage racks, an oven and exhaust hoods, to food-grade tables. The concrete is poured and walls are constructed. The local health authority comes in to inspect the construction progress, who happens to have a background in industrial food-grade facilities (think General Mills). They remind the company that they must have three-compartment sinks with hot running water for effective cleaning and sanitation, known as clean-out-of-place (COP). The result? Partial demolition of the floor to run pipeline, and a retrofit to make room for the larger sinks, including redoing electrical work and a contentious team debate about the size of the existing equipment that was designed to fit ‘just right.’

Unfortunately, this is just one more common story our team recently witnessed. In this article, I outline a few recommendations and a process (Quality by Design) that could have reduced this and many other issues. For some, following the process may just be the difference between being profitable or going out of business in 2021.

The benefits of Quality by Design are tangible and measurable:

  1. Reduce mistakes that lead to costly re-work
  2. Mitigate inefficient operational flow
  3. Reduce the risk of cross-contamination and product mix-ups. It happens all the time without carefully laid out processes.
  4. Eliminate bottlenecks in your production process
  5. Mitigate the risk of a major recall.

The solution is in the process

Regardless of whether you fall in the category of a food producer, manufacturer of infused products (MIP), food producers, re-packager or even a cultivator, consider the following and ask these questions as a team.

People

Food processing and sanitation
By standardizing and documenting safety procedures, manufacturers mitigate the risk of cannabis-specific concerns

For every process, who is performing it? This may be a single individual or the role of specific people as defined in a job description.

Does the individual(s) performing the process have sufficient education and training? Do you have a diverse team that can provide different perspectives? World class operations are not developed in a vacuum, but rather with a team. Encourage healthy discourse and dialogue.

Process

Is the process defined? Perhaps in a standard operating procedure (SOP) or work instruction (WI). This is not the general guidance an equipment vendor provided you with, this is your process.

How well do you know your process? Does your SOP or WI specify (with numbers) how long to run the piece of equipment, the specification of the raw materials used (or not used) during the process, and what defines a successful output?

Do you have a system in place for when things deviate from the process? Processes are not foolproof. Do not get hung up on deviations from the process, but don’t turn a blind eye to them. Record and monitor them. In time, they will show you clear opportunities for improvement, preventing major catastrophes.

Materials

What are the raw materials being used? Where are they coming from (who is your supplier and how did you qualify them)?

Start with the raw materials that create your product or touch your product at all stages of the process. We have seen many cases where cannabis oils fail for heavy metals, specifically lead. Extractors are quick to blame the cultivator and their nutrients, as cannabis is a very effective phytoremediator (it uptakes heavy metals and toxins from soil substrate). The more likely culprit – your glassware! Storing cannabis oil, both work in process or final product in glass jars, while preferred over plastic, requires due diligence on the provider of your glassware. If they change the factory in which it is produced, will you be notified? Stipulate this in your contract. Don’t find yourself in the next cannabis lead recall that gets the attention of the FDA.

Savings is gained through simple control of your raw materials. Variability in your raw material going into the extractor is inevitable, but the more you can do to standardize the quality of your inputs, the less work re-formulating needs to be done downstream. Eliminate the constant need to troubleshoot why yields are lower than expected, or worst case, having to rerun or throw an entire batch out because it was “hot” (either too much THC in the hemp/CBD space or pesticides/heavy metals). These all add up to significant downstream bottlenecks – underutilized equipment, inefficient staff (increase in labor cost) all because of a lack of upstream controls. Use your current process as a starting point, but implement a quality system to drive improvement in operational efficiency and watch your top line grow while your bottom-line decreases.

Consistency in quality standards requires meticulous SOPs

Have you tested and confirmed the quality of your raw material? This isn’t just does it have THC and is it cannabis, but is it a certain particle size, moisture level, etc.? Again, define the quality of your raw materials (specifications) and test for it.

Remember – ranges are your friend. It is much better to say 9-13% moisture than “about 10%”. For your most diligent extractor, 11% will be unacceptable, but for a guy that just wants to get the job done, 13% just may do!

Test your final product AFTER the process. Again, how does it stack up against your specifications? You may need to have multiple specifications based on different types of raw material. Perhaps one strain with a certain range of cannabinoids and terpenes can be expected for production.

Review the data and trend it. Are you getting lower yields than normal? This may be due to an issue with the equipment, maybe a blockage has formed somewhere, a valve is loose, and simple preventive maintenance will get you back up and running. Or, it could be that the raw biomass quality has changed. Either way, having that data available for review and analysis will allow you to identify the root cause and prevent a surprise failure of your equipment. Murphy’s law applies to the cannabis industry too.

  1. You are able to predict and prevent most failures before they occur
  2. You increase the longevity of your equipment
  3. You are able to predict with a level of confidence – imagine estimating how much product you will product next month and hitting that target – every time!
  4. Business risks are significantly mitigated – a process that spews out metal, concentrates heavy metals or does not kill microbes that were in the raw material is an expensive mistake.
  5. Your employees don’t feel like they are running around with their hair on fire all the time. It’s expensive to train new employees. Reduce your turnover with a less stressed-out team.

Takeaways

Maintaining a competitive edge in the cannabis industry is not easy, but it can be made easier with the right team, tools and data. Our recommendations boil down to a few simple steps:

  1. Make sure you have a chemical or mechanical engineer to understand, optimize and standardize your process (you should have one of these on staff permanently!)
  2. Implement a testing program for all raw materials
    1. Test your raw materials – cannabis flower, solvents, additives, etc. before using. Work with your team to understand what you should and should not test for, and the frequency for doing so. Some materials/vendors are likely more consistent or reliable than others. Test the less reliable ones more frequently (or even every time!)
  3. Test your final product after you extract it – Just because your local regulatory body does not require a certain test, it does not mean you should not look for it. Anything that you specified wanting the product to achieve needs to be tested at an established frequency (and this does not necessarily need to be every batch).
  4. Repeat, and record all of your extraction parameters.
  5. Review, approve and set a system in place for monitoring any changes.

Congratulations, you have just gone through the process of validating your operation. You may now begin to realize the benefits of validating your operation, from your personnel to your equipment and processes.

How to Streamline Labeling from Seed to Sale in The Time of COVID-19

By Travis Wayne
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As if the cannabis industry doesn’t regularly go through enough rapid change, with COVID-19, cultivators, processors and dispensers of all sizes are trying to do more with less. Lower operational headcount and unpredictable production volume, along with a rapidly-changing supply chain – make eliminating manual steps a necessity. Labels include barcodes or various barcode symbologies to help companies manage inventory, identify products and ultimately ensure that the right products get to the right customers at the right time. By eliminating manual steps in your labeling environment, you can address these issues through automation, scalability, efficiency and accuracy: benefits that will last through the pandemic and position you well for the recovery period.

Automation

Automation of many kinds is being implemented from seed to sale including barcode label printing automation. Integration of labeling software and seed to sale traceability systems including METRC, BioTrack, Leaf Data and others enables streamlined barcode label data population and high-volume label printing to counteract the decreasing operational headcount and eliminate manual touchpoints.

Print automation can be defined as “a centralized technology that replaces the manual process of triggering a print job within a labeling environment.” Look for a labeling software solution that allows you to:

    • Completely automate your label printing process
    • Print to a greater number of printers
    • Initiate printing directly from any business system
Integrating your label printing system with your seed to sale traceability system can minimize errors, increase print speeds and maximize your ROI.

By integrating your label printing system with your seed to sale traceability system, you can expect to minimize errors, increase print speeds and maximize your ROI. Your business system already holds the variable data such as product names, license number, batch or lot codes, allergens, net quantity, cannabis facts, warning statements and more. By systematically sending this data to the right label template at the right time, labeling becomes an efficient and cost-effective process.

Scalability

One of the most important considerations for cannabis cultivators, processors and dispensers is to invest in solutions that can grow and pivot quickly as the business changes. Whether you are responding to temporary requirements or changes, or your business needs to scale up quickly to respond to a spike in demands as a result of COVID-19 or to prepare for coming out of this pandemic. Whatever your needs are, think about short-term and long-term goals for sustainable business solutions. Scalability includes:

Printing to a greater number of printers

As needs and automation requirements change, and your printer inventory has the possibility of increasing, make sure your labeling design software can be licensed per simultaneous user, with cost-effective, multi-user networking licenses. That way, you don’t run the risk of paying for more printers as you grow or going over budget with each additional printer.

Print documents and labels from the same application

If you use the same data for your documents (like order receipts, bills of materials or packing lists) and labels, moving document printing into your label design software makes sense logistically. An advanced label creation and integration software enables label and document printing standardization by allowing multiple database records to be on one file. That means when new documents or labels come into your database, your software can seamlessly integrate.

Efficiency and accuracy

In a time where responding to the changing market needs to happen very quickly, where costs are being scrutinized and when errors cannot happen – you need to set up your labeling environment to have high levels of accuracy and control. With increased accuracy you will reduce waste, eliminate returns due to mislabeled product, efficiently track product and gain more efficiencies that will save you money and time.

Cutting manual steps out of the process

Removing manual steps in your printing process is a sure-fire way to gain efficiency and accuracy in your labeling environment. Look for labeling software features that allow you to add variable data from a device to your labels automatically, which limits the human interaction with your labels and in turn helps minimize human errors. Other efficiencies include:

On-demand color labeling streamlines efficiency and accuracy across a wide variety of labeling needs.
  • Increased print speed within your labeling environment
  • Reduced label waste
  • Collection of data from several devices such as:
    • Scanners
    • Scales
    • Keyboards

On-demand color labeling

On-demand labeling is specifically helpful in the cannabis labeling world because of all the regulations you must comply with. Each state has its own regulations, which means each label throughout the cannabis supply chain must be compliant with whichever state they are located. With on-demand labeling, cannabis companies print labels as needed and make changes as they go without the risk of wasting obsolete pre-printed label stock. This is beneficial as pre-printed labels often have large minimum order quantities. On-demand labeling also helps companies maintain better control of their own branding and graphics.

With on-demand labeling, label information can be populated by using pre-approved label templates in order to save you time with the variations of cannabis labels. This gives you the ability to print the specific label you need without having to waste your pre-printed label stock, or spend time switching out your pre-printed label stock in your printer.

Cannabis cultivators, processors and dispensers are faced with many obstacles during these challenging times due to COVID-19 – ensuring workers are safe, keeping operations at 100% capacity with potentially fewer people, creating contingency plans that may be changing daily. In an environment that is changing very quickly, consider how labeling solutions can evolve. You may also need to lean more on your partners than you ever have in the past.

Four Payroll Best Practices for Cannabis Companies

By Michelle Lanter Smith
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Among the myriad business challenges facing cannabis companies, processing payroll ranks right up there. On top of the industry’s overarching banking and regulatory hurdles—not to mention prohibitive tax liability—its varied, sometimes unconventional pay models can fall outside the scope of traditional payroll processing.

Obviously, despite the many business issues clamoring for attention, the cannabis industry is powered by people—and for a business to succeed, employees must be paid accurately, legally, and on time.

While the industry is still evolving in many respects, there are steps cannabis businesses can take right now to ensure payroll is processed correctly and compliantly—including these four best practices.

1. Implement Foolproof Tracking Processes for Each Pay Model

In addition to salaried and hourly employees—who can be difficult to time-track, depending how they’re distributed—some growers pay bud trimmers by the ounce or pound of trimmed, manicured product. While such productivity-based compensation may make absolute sense for your business, most conventional time and attendance and payroll software isn’t equipped to administer this pay model.

As a result, some companies may resort to manual tracking—but that can create regulatory recordkeeping challenges of their own. The answer: flexible time and attendance software that allows companies to track employees’ time and/or productivity using a variety of data collection methods for different elements of the workforce. It may mean using conventional biometric time clocks at processing facilities and retail dispensaries…mobile time-tracking apps for gardeners and growers in the field…and versatile apps that track employee output by work order or piece rate, however your business chooses to define it.

Furthermore, regardless of how it’s collected, all that data needs to flow seamlessly into your payroll processing system, ensuring pay is calculated correctly for every pay model. The HR payroll software is out there, but you may need to look for it.

2. Verify that Your Payroll Provider Is Cannabis-Friendly

Perhaps you’ve heard horror stories of cannabis companies getting abruptly dropped by their software providers with a mere 30-days’ notice. Some leading HR payroll software companies have made seemingly overnight decisions to withdraw from servicing the cannabis industry, leaving employers struggling to pay their people. Who can implement new HR payroll software in 30 days?

Make sure your payroll provider is committed to serving the cannabis industry for the long haul. If the commitment isn’t there, start looking elsewhere. Beyond avoiding potentially damaging business disruptions, partnering with a software provider that actively services the cannabis industry will offer unique capabilities you may not find elsewhere.

3. Become an Expert on IRS Code 280e (COGS)

Thanks to section 280e of Internal Revenue code, state-compliant cannabis business cannot deduct business expenses except for the cost of goods sold (COGS).

The saving grace here for growers and processors: labor costs that are inventorial in nature are considered cost of goods sold. That includes the cleaning, trimming and curing of product, as well as packaging and inventory labor.

Therefore, for tax purposes, it’s critical to assign each employee a specific title and role within your operation. This is particularly important for vertically-integrated companies whose employees wear more than one hat.

Say, an employee works part time in cultivation and part time in your retail dispensary. You need to be able to track their work time and compensation separately—i.e., you need a time and attendance system that can track split shifts—and keep detailed records of what labor costs are and aren’t deductible.

 4. Consider Integrated HR Payroll Software

Because of payroll challenges, many cannabis businesses are still piecing together disparate HR systems, such as applicant tracking, time and attendance, payroll and benefits. But when their integration isn’t flawless it can create the need for duplicate inputting and elaborate manual workarounds.

Furthermore, a patchwork software can stop businesses from accessing reports and analytics that inform decision-making and better position the company for growth—while also ensuring the company is in a position to provide whatever regulatory information may be required.

The answer: choose a payroll provider that offers complete, integrated HR payroll software—one that that can demonstrate its long-term commitment to serving the state-licensed cannabis industry.

Open For Business: California Market Launches

By Aaron G. Biros
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California’s full legal cannabis market officially opened its doors for business on January 1st, 2018. Following a relatively short time frame when they announced the first licenses awarded less than a month ago, retail stores were open for business in counties throughout California. Customers came out in full force, with long lines on the opening day, with some hundreds deep stretching around blocks.

For the quick turn around time between implementing regulations and awarding temporary licenses, the grand opening of the cannabis market in the nation’s most populous state proceeded smoothly. Only a handful of minor hiccups associated with the launch were reported throughout the state. In the grand scheme of things, that’s a pretty good job for a new regulatory agency (The Bureau) tasked with regulating such a massive fledgling market.

One major and definitely foreseeable hiccup in the launch of California’s new medical and adult use markets was the failure to implement tracking software. According to Michael Blood with The Associated Press, licensed businesses are being asked by the California Department of Food and Agriculture to manually document sales and transfers of cannabis with paper invoices.

Los Angeles
Image: Kevin Stanchfield, Flickr

While the Department said the traceability system was implemented Tuesday, Blood says, cannabis businesses are not required to use it and will be trained on how to operate it before it becomes required to use later in 2018.

Local control regulations in California means that businesses must first seek approval from local authorities before attaining a temporary license from the state to operate. That coupled with the rolling process of awarding licenses meant that only some cannabis businesses could officially open their doors. Municipalities throughout California handle regulating cannabis differently.

The handful of adult use dispensaries with temporary licenses in the Los Angeles area received a massive influx of customers on opening day. Residents of LA came in droves to the four West Hollywood dispensaries open for adult use business.