The Project

A rapidly-growing wholesale pickle manufacturer found itself needing to automate its production data processing to accommodate its increasing volume. As a food manufacturer, it is required to track the origins of every ingredient and packaging component through to customer shipments and meet stringent reporting requirements.

When they contacted Fox Wyndrum Associates, the company was collecting and maintaining this data manually. At multiple points during ordering, receiving, production, packaging, labeling and shipping, lengthy product and lot coding was handwritten by workers, then transferred to various ledgers and then again to spreadsheets. The process was extremely inefficient and highly susceptible to error.

The Solution

Fox Wyndrum Associates developed an end-to-end web-based manufacturing system for the company, utilizing tablets on the production floor to eliminate paper processing. It maintains raw materials and finished goods inventory, tracks purchase orders, customer orders and shipments, and gives management robust reporting for sales, production, inventory projections and more. Sales data is readily exported to an external accounting package. The underlying data model creates extensive data controls that allows “smart” options to efficiently filter user selections.

The implemented system is composed of several interwoven modules:

Sales Order Maintenance

The sales order process features streamlined entry with user- and location-level customer and product access to ensure correct data collection. Customer-specific product numbers are supported. The Data feeds into shipping calendars and delivery schedules. It is combined with inventory information for production planning.

Purchase Orders and Inventory Receiving

Purchasing and receiving tens of thousands of pounds of produce a week with a three-to-four day turnover necessitated an efficient but flexible purchase order entry and receiving process. As the first “building block” of the ingredient-trace chain, it accurately captures product origins and lots. The process generates labels clearly identifying each item received, allowing raw materials to be scanned into inventory then out to production.

Manufacturing Production Process

The production module is the most dynamic part of the company’s manufacturing system. It combines separate functionality of three production components:

The produce ingredients are pulled from inventory and are put into production lines on the tablet.

The brine mixing operators , working separately, record newly created batches using pre-defined recipes to trace ingredient lot usage. They are able to control release into an unlimited number of production lines or to storage.

Product batch supervisors , pulling data from produce and brine active on the lines, are able to quickly pair brine and produce batches in real time on the production floor, generating unique end-product batch lot numbers and barcodes linked to all included source ingredients and packaging.

Finished Goods Inventory and Shipping

The system generates transactions in and out of finished goods inventory, maintaining individual product batch lot identification through to end customer delivery. The robust reporting functions support shipment scheduling, pick and pack, and inventory control management. The system also generates all necessary shipping documentation to meet regulatory guidelines.