Large-scale pharmaceutical companies benefit from using Hitch Standardization because these calculations help ensure product color consistency across multiple lab locations. Image Source: Shutterstock user Intarapong
If you’ve ever purchased your favorite brand of over-the-counter medication while you’re on vacation, you know that brand-name pills, powders, and liquids often look exactly the same no matter where you are in the world. Even when you travel thousands of miles away, your preferred brand of allergy tablets will likely be the same reliable shade of bright orange, whether you’re buying the tablets in London or New York. In order to supply medications to these many different cities, large-scale pharmaceutical companies typically operate hundreds of manufacturing facilities around the world.
But with so many different manufacturing facilities, how do pharmaceutical companies maintain precise color consistency in their products? They accomplish this by standardizing their manufacturing and testing process. More specifically, large-scale companies use methods like Hitch Standardization to ensure that all of their manufacturing facilities perform color quality control tests in precisely the same way. By standardizing the color quality control process across different manufacturing locations using Hitch Standardization, you can produce medications that are perfectly consistent in color.
How Color Consistency Benefits the Pharmaceutical Industry and Consumers
Color quality control is a vital aspect of the pharmaceutical industry. Not only can consistent color be a sign of proper formulation and a significant safety mechanism, it also deeply impacts consumer perception of medication. Additionally, manufacturers of brand name medications rely on color consistency to help them gain a greater share of the market and establish their brand identity in the eyes of their customers. For these manufacturers, the product’s unique trade dress (the appearance of the product) could significantly increase a customer’s loyalty and trust in the brand.1
And color consistency isn’t just important for over-the-counter medication manufacturers; pharmaceutical companies that produce prescription drugs also have to ensure that their products are consistent in color, in part due to the effect color has on both patient behavior, including adherence. For example, studies have shown that people are more likely to take their prescribed medications as prescribed when they see that their pills are the same color every time they refill their prescriptions at the pharmacy.2 If the pill color suddenly changes, then people are less likely to take them as prescribed. As such, color consistency isn’t merely a marketing tool—it can have a very real impact on patient health and wellbeing.
Large-Scale Manufacturers Often Struggle with Color Consistency
Although color consistency is critical in the pharmaceutical industry, it can be very difficult to achieve, especially for large-scale companies. Many large pharmaceutical companies manage hundreds of different test labs and manufacturing facilities around the world. For example, Johnson & Johnson oversees a network of 120 separate manufacturing facilities in more than 60 different countries.3 With so many manufacturing and testing facilities operating simultaneously, it can be challenging to identify and enforce consistent sample measurement standards. This is why many pharmaceutical companies use Hitch Standardization to ensure that every product they create is being measured in exactly the same way.
You can gain better color quality control over your pharmaceutical products when you test these products using a standard, well-defined method. Image Source: Shutterstock user showcake
