High competition, highly variable material costs, regulatory requirements and quality management are some key challenges to food and beverage industry profitability. To succeed in these industries, you must have a firm and immediate grasp of production and product margins, and be able to make timely sales and operational decisions based upon accurate data. Having a coherent, cohesive data repository with efficient work flows is a key component of managing these complex issues.

Here is a sample of the industry issues that we have the experience and tools to address:

Security
We realize that to a food or beverage company, formulas are 1) A Proprietary Competitive Edge and 2) Critical to quality and safety control.
With 3 levels of security we can specify formula visibility groups, formula change approvals, optional electronic signatures, and very specific access rules.

Managing Profitability
With low margins and often highly fluctuating material costs, effectively managing profitability is a must for food and beverage manufacturers.
Formula costing and what-if scenarios are a key component of managing profitability. We track and make cost data easily available so you can track the costs of materials, labor, packaging and finished goods. Yield / cost alerts and the keen insight of MAS 500 business analytics, we make costing transparent and readily accessible throughout the entire formulation and production process.

Integrated Systems
The typical picture we see in food industries is this:
Formulations are kept in Excel, Access or some third party formulation product, then re-keyed into a production system. Changes in formuations often require data updates in several places.
Quality Control keeps their own database of test profiles, test results, hold status, lot information and more. The problem here is that changes to the QC database do not affect current inventory in the ERP system, so someone must make adjustments or physical segregate the materials in the warehouse so that they don't get used. This leads to errors, untimely data and the possibility of using or shipping something that was not approved.

Production reporting is not timely enough to affect the current day's production. With an active, integrated system, production could be notified immediately if yields or costs go outside of specifications.

Many industries need to track attributes, such as: solids content, nutritionals, sugar content, color etc, on a lot by lot basis. And these industries can often have different attribute specifications for different customers. Because the ERP is used for inventory control, the ERP system is a perfect place to manage these complexities, generate the customer specific Certificate of Analysis.

Other Issues Addressed by an Escape Velocity Solution

Instant lot traceability (forwards and backwards) that drills down into shipments, receipts and through production

Quality Control and lot attribute variability analysis

Customer specific requirements for attributes

Formulation by percents, variable units of measure or both at the same time

Customer service visibility (from Sales Orders) into current production data

Pricing flexibility including: national accounts, contracts, promotions, customer and product price groups