There is always something new under the sun!
Access to new markets has created new supply and distribution models for food and beverage manufacturers. Whether it is ‘field to fork’ supply chains for fresh produce, farm to fork for meat and poultry or vineyard to vintner – our clients have provided our team with a variety of challenges.
Not the least of which relates to environmental control across a broad range of temperatures. And we have always been up to the task! Especially when it involves sampling the products that we bring to market!
Problems we have solved in collaboration with client team members include:
Storage and Distribution of Seasonal Crops
Harvesting sweet potatoes once a year and having them available for a variety of special occasions creates a variety of challenges. Working with a cross functional team of growers, packers, distributors, educators, researchers and retail partners our team developed solutions to meet this challenge.
Meat processing, storage and distribution
Bringing pigs to market has its own challenges – compounded by logistics challenges for transportation from farms to processing plants. One such problem was addressed by our team on behalf of a processor in Toronto – residential restrictions on the movement of heavy vehicles created delays in delivery. Through supply chain evaluation it was possible to schedule the delivery windows for the transportation of live pigs to the packaging site to meet these constraints. Structuring the access and exits points it was also possible to ensure a flow of inbound live pigs as well as the outbound shipment of processed meats and by products what required refrigerated transportation. This satisfied restrictions from the neighborhood as well as providing a more efficient process from an operational perspective.
Warehouse Management System for liquor and beer distributor
Carribbean based distributor of beer, wine and alcoholic beverages wanted to update their warehouse control system. Issues and concerns related to lot control for beer which has a limited shelf life as well as inventory control for high value items. In addition current operations were dependent on a high level of manual data entry. The current information system was highly modified to meet the needs of the business operations and the client leadership team wanted to find a solution that integrated with the current applications. Formed a cross-functional team that comprised internal information technology resources, operations personnel and the systems integrator that had assisted with previous modifications. Through developing a set of specific user scenarios and evaluating the processing options in the existing ERP system and supporting this with hand held bar-code readers it was possible to obtained the desired functionality. This was then implemented into the storage and distribution environment in 3 different locations. User level training took place ‘on the job’ which assisted in making the transition from the very manual process to one that provided process automation. From the first day of implementation the manual data entry was replaced by the new workflow and data capture devices. Existing personnel where redeployed into other positions. Inventory positions were updated daily versus weekly facilitating better stock rotation and expiration control.