Delighted customers make businesses grow. Although satisfying their constantly changing needs can be challenging. Especially for the food industry which is continuously seeking an ERP solution that can be customized to meet stringent quality, safety and on-time delivery norms.
In this blog, we’re illustrating how a customizable food industry-specific ERP solution—such as ColumbusFood—helped a historic cannery overcome its manufacturing hurdles some of its still-in-use early 20th century equipment was causing.
The problem
When a French agricultural products cooperative acquired the cannery about eight years back, the acquisition came with a rich legacy and some outdated equipment—dating back to the 40s and 50s. While the canning company did deploy Microsoft Dynamics NAV to handle accounting, warehousing and production management, it still found itself facing hurdles in inventory management, accurate costing and quality maintenance. The magnitude of its problems compounded by only a few people from one department handling the ERP solution.
The resolution
Deploying a customizable, food industry-specific ERP solution—in this case, ColumbusFood—on the latest version of Dynamics ERP improved the cannery’s production reporting, inventory accuracy and traceability capabilities. Another benefit was the development of a product receiving module capable of accommodating hectic shipment schedules when the cannery was running at full capacity during harvest season.
The implementation of a scanning solution called Automated Data Capture (ADC) has given the cannery real-time visibility into the consumption and output of raw materials into finished goods using iPads (mounted on forklifts) and scanners (along production lines).
Before the implementation, the canning company also did not have a real-time view of its inventory since companywide, nobody was using scanners. Through the ADC, it was able to leverage more than 50 devices in the plant, helping prevent hiccups in inventory management and providing actionable insights to frontline production and warehouse workers.
The outcome
Since it was implemented, ColumbusFood has significantly improved processes in all departments across the cannery—from quality and production to sales; from warehousing to supply chain management. The following is a list of what ColumbusFood has achieved for the company:
- Simplified production reporting
- Provided real-time insights facilitating timely order completions while implementing modern inventory controls
- Enabled the creation of variance report(s) leading to considerably increased ROI
- Reduced the margin for error and late order fulfillment through new production reports and improved inventory accuracy
The canning company has also been able to build its future strategies by staying on top of its business and pre-emptively identify challenges by leveraging data using ColumbusFood.
The inference
Numerous food manufacturers, processors and distributors have leveraged ColumbusFood to modernize their businesses over the years because the ERP solution does the following:
- It enables businesses to keep up with evolving customer demands and changing food safety norms
- It provides real-time visibility into operations leading to effective cost and quality management
- It helps businesses maintain the highest standards of quality and safety while ensuring timely delivery
- It assists organizations in overcoming distribution-, operations- and organizational change-related challenges
Whether you specialize in baking, brewing, confectionery, dairy, produce or meat and poultry, ColumbusFood is the scalable—yet flexible—solution that can simplify production reporting and improve inventory accuracy for you, and provide greater ROI.
There are several advantages of implementing a food-specific ERP solution. Learn more here. Contact us at Columbus today to discover more about ColumbusFood and how we can tailor it to fulfill your requirements.