Quality Control in the Production Chain of Herbal Products

Quality control is an important tool in the production of high-quality herbal products, while lack of control can result in inferior products that may lead to health problems in the consumers. A quality system is described using Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software in a fully integrated herbal production process in The Netherlands. For each production process all success and failure factors were determined and monitored with forms that the users filled out on the computer. All data were integrated and the ERP system linked quality and knowledge management regarding traceability, cultivation and processing (including advisory capacities) and research. Although the system was only partly implemented, the results were satisfactory and suggest that this could be an important tool for sustainable high-quality production systems of herbal products.