Natures Way Marketing Goes Live With LINKFresh®
Live Traceable Stock Information now available
throughout the company
Natures
Way Marketing, a leading UK supplier of fresh produce to major supermarkets,
food processors and wholesale markets, today announced that it had
successfully implemented the LINKFresh® business management suite
to run its entire operation. Working in partnership with Cambridge based
Anglia Business Solutions, the totally integrated solution was deployed
within budget to manage the finance, sales and purchasing processes as well
as the total pack house operation.
“We selected the LINKFresh® system due to the strength of the
underlying Microsoft Navision technology coupled with the sophisticated
fresh produce packaged functionality developed by Anglia”, explained Natures
Way IT manager Mike Fletcher. “The two tier architecture of Microsoft
Navision where all information is dynamically updated as it happens is
ideally suited to the fast moving fresh produce industry. Three tier batch
oriented technologies are too slow to cope with produce that can move
through the business in a few hours”.
The solution consists of a Microsoft Dynamics NAV core with the integrated
LINKFresh® foundation and supply chain modules at the heart of
the system. The pack house management mobile applications from Anglia’s
unique .NET surround technology suite are used to manage quality control and
stock movements in real time. These are also used to facilitate bar coding,
scanning and document image capture. A powerful integrated LINKFresh®
planning board managing demand and supply will be implemented imminently. A
range of reports provide timely management information on client and product
trends. The complete system is run on a Windows 2003 and Microsoft SQL
server based platform.
“Having on-line access to live stock records provides Natures Way with a
major competitive advantage”, says Managing Director Steve Barnes. “It
enables us to see what comes in and from where, who handled it, where it is
now or where it went. With this visibility, we can now react more quickly to
any situation which helps us to minimise waste.
Centralised access to scanned documents such as QC reports, proof of
delivery and supplier invoices has significantly improved efficiency while
reducing administration costs. Being able to e-mail documents straight from
the system has saved on handling and postage. The reports from the system
provide timely and accurate information on product and customer trends.
Overall, the LINKFresh® system has exceeded our expectations. The
Anglia team have worked hard to understand our business and implement a
system that precisely meets the needs of Natures Way Marketing.”
David Hurley Managing Director of Anglia comments, “The Natures Way
Marketing implementation is an excellent example of the power of the
LINKFresh® system in action. Once the LINKFresh®
foundation and supply chain modules were released, the full deployment was
executed in a remarkably rapid timescale. The innovation within this
solution is exceptional and very rare if not unique in the fresh produce
industry. The results are a tribute to the skills, dedication and
collaboration of the Natures Way and Anglia implementation teams.”
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