LINKFresh provides VGS with
significant efficiency gains
Company
background
Valley Grown Salads (VGS),
based at Roydon in Essex, supply locally
grown and imported tomatoes, peppers, aubergines and cucumbers to three
leading supermarkets. The company occupies a 30,000 sq ft pack house in a 2.5
acre site in Roydon with a further 10 acres of glasshouse in Lea Valley
and 600 acres of growing area in South East Spain. This ensures all year
round supply of produce to their customers. VGS operate its own fleet of
refrigerated transport and are LEAF Marque accredited.
The Business Need
The main business need was to
use information technology as an aid to productivity throughout the
business. VGS operates in the high volume low margin fast moving fresh
produce sector. Its legacy systems were struggling to cope with the
regulatory and traceability issues now demanded of the food industry.
As a result, the company
operated a variety of disparate paper and electronic applications to manage
the movement of produce throughout the organisation. This led to significant
duplication of data as information was manually transferred between systems.
Apart from the increasing administration costs, it was becoming difficult to
gain access to useful management information on customers and products.
The ideal scenario was to
have rapid access to stock information in real time. This would provide the
management team with useful customer and product trend information. In
addition, there was a need to monitor the performance of growers as a means
of improving quality. Furthermore, the company wished to reduce waste and
increase efficiency as a means of competing in a highly competitive sector.
The Solution
Having carried out an
extensive market evaluation, VGS chose the Microsoft Dynamics NAV based
LINKFresh™ solution from Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Anglia Business
Solutions. The solution encompassed the LINKFresh modules for Foundation,
Supply Chain & Logistics during the initial phase.
These were augmented during
the second phase by the integration of advanced mobility applications. These
dynamically recorded all stock transactions as the produce moved through the
supply chain. The specific system elements are as follows:
Sales Order
Processing
The previous method of sales order
processing represented a major challenge to the VGS administrative team. The
EDI interface runs over a standard 56k modem and the order data collected
needed to be manually extracted and re-keyed to manually managed
spreadsheets, order sheets and pallet labelling. This resulted in up to 2
hours of lost time each day.
Each of the 8 daily orders could combine up to 14
different products and the quantities required. This potentially produced
112 order lines. As there was no interface from the EDI
system with any of VGS’s systems these were re-entered manually to the
required areas of the business. It included Weekly Stock Sheets, Production
Orders Board, Production Print Labels, Production Order Sheets, Distribution
Load Sheets, and Distribution Load Tickets. Excluding the needs of the
technical & QC departments it involved potentially 672 manual order line
entries per day.
This highly labour intensive error prone manual
process was replaced by the sophisticated order handling facilities within
the LINKFresh suite. The solution directly links to the EDI system and a
single data entry automatically disseminates information throughout the
company. This includes the whole cycle of forecast, procurement, goods
receipt, stock, inventory updates, EDI, manual sales order processing,
production, packing orders, labelling orders, transportation load and
distribution planning.
The integrated EDI solution handles all the customer
cross references and item EAN no’s. Any errors on EDI files e.g. incorrect
EAN no’s, can be viewed by VGS in an error log within the system. VGS can
also directly create EDI invoices for customers where appropriate. This
happens seamlessly in the background and creates an EDI file which meets
both Kewill Invfil8 and Invfil9 file standards
Stock Control
A key element of the VGS Procurement, Sales and
Production cycle was the VGS Stock Control Sheet. This
Microsoft Excel based system was used to collate all of the required
operational stock information for each week. It included Opening Stock
(taken as an actual stock count each day at 12.00pm), Work in Progress, Due
in Tomorrow, Net Total, Daily EDI Order Totals and Net Daily Stock Balance.
While the sheets provide the required critical
operational information for each week, it was a static information grid.
There was no integration with any of VGS’s other data systems and had to be
updated manually. The management of this spreadsheet took up a significant
part of each employee’s day. In addition, daily rotation checks maintained
the proper usage and cycle of stock from the racking system.
Again this information was not system based and required constant
manual intervention.
Under the previous system, goods were received at 4
loading bays at the Nazelow Nursery. Each vehicle carried Goods Received
documentation, grower’s tickets and delivery notes. These were checked
against the daily expected receipts schedule. Produce was then passed
through their initial QC inspection for acceptance. Once received, items
were placed within the racking system in accordance with the rotational
requirements and appropriately labelled with manually produced colour
labels. These recorded the day, date and quantities received. When racked,
the Warehouse white board was updated with the location, and quantities.
Subsequently the information was transferred to paper based stock
forms. The whole process was unwieldy, highly labour intensive and lacked
company wide transparency.
Anglia
deployed its LINKFresh Warehouse Management module to replace all manual and
paper based systems.
The Microsoft Dynamics NAV based LINKFresh Mobile
Warehouse Management solution was implemented to refine this vital element
of the supply chain. The mobile applications handled produce receipting,
pallet enquiries, quality control (QC) and consumption.
The Receipting Module handles the intake of goods from
a PO receipt. Details such as Packaging
Specification, Unit of Measure and Quantity
Received are captured. For ease of use, rather than the user having to
select from a long list of packaging specifications, the solution prompts
for the entry of outer, inner and quantity. It then automatically creates
the specification record.
In addition the user also has the ability to print
pallet labels. This module allows an operative to receipt goods into store.
It also provides an overview of outstanding and receipted deliveries per
day.
The Pallet Enquiry Module allows for a given pallet
barcode to be scanned which displays a summary of the pallet information.
The information is dynamically extracted from the appropriate Item Card
within the central NAV LINKFresh solution. From here, pallet labels can be
reprinted as required.
The Mobile QC Module enables the users to perform
Quality Control procedures for goods intake and also on final dispatch. The
module has been configured to perform any required combination of QC tests
depending on the product and/or the customer.
The Consumption Module records consumption from the
grader or production lines in real time. Waste is recorded against product
going to market and product checked back into stock. For a given pack job,
the user can repeatedly record pallets (either full or partial) consumed for
the selected pack job. The results recorded are
dynamically updated in the central NAV LINKFresh solution with full
traceability being maintained for all pallets consumed in this way.
Open Price Trading
VGS send small quantities of produce to market for
market trade at open price. Although making up a small percentage of their
total business, it was time consuming to administer as recording was manual.
Today the LINKFresh solution provides a sophisticated
but easy to use application for the open price sale of consignments to the
market trade. This enables VGS to manage, monitor and report profitability
on all of its market trade operations. Additionally designated suppliers can
also supply VGS on and open price basis
The recently deployed LINKFresh Trading Board was
designed to show all inbound and outbound stock movements and current stock
position on a single screen. It also facilitates the
buying and selling of stock directly from the main screen.
The purchaser/buyer can see all rolling stock values
for any given time period from this one screen. The layout of this screen
can be configured as required. It enables the user to choose from
pre-defined item sets including sales, purchasing, production, and transfer
or forecasting data to assemble an accurate overview of the current stock
position using live data.
Produce items are summarised on screen with details
presented underneath as the user clicks on the relevant cell. The user can
trade directly from this screen. Buying and selling from here will create
provisional orders. These are amalgamated and can be turned into firm
sales/purchase orders later in the day.
“Visibility of dynamic stock information on the
trading screen has provided us with a very useful aid in reducing waste”
explains Ian Parrot. “We can immediately see when we have to react to
potential stock surpluses and reduce our write off exposure”.
Production
Prior to the introduction of the LINKFresh suite, the
Production Department had no software based operational system. A paper
based procedure used a combination of weekly stock sheets and disparate
forms. Manual recording processes were used for recording of warehouse
picks, raw materials, produce consumption, outputs of finished product and
traceability information. Issuing instructions to the
warehouse and pack lines while managing the whole process was highly labour
intensive.
To meet the production challenges within VGS, the
standard LINKFresh Supply Chain and Operations Granules were deployed for
the full data capture and automation of the production cycle. These replaced
the various paper based processes with a single fully integrated solution.
With LINKFresh, the Production Manager can see all of
the day’s orders from the Production Summary screen. This information can be
for a single day or customer or a range of days or customers. The Production
Manager can cut and dice the information as suits him so he can make the
best decision on production loading.
He can create packing orders directly from this screen
and can overwrite the suggested quantities to incorporate pack-ahead’s or to
accommodate inaccurate proposed quantities. Specific Lots used can be
recorded in ‘Real time’ or in a batch posting. Second class
output and any waste is also captured at this stage. Posting the packing
order consumes the stated product and produces finished goods which can
either be immediately allocated to a pallet or allocated at a later stage.
Gang labour can also be attributed to the packing order at this stage.
The complete system has refined the production
process, eliminated much of the paperwork and provided company wide
visibility of order progress. In addition, it has provided the production
team with a degree of agility that was difficult to achieve with the
previous systems.
Transport Management
VGS are required to deliver daily to between 4 and 12
depots. They undertake the haulage of both their own and
3rd Party produce. This involves consolidating incoming loads and
re-distributing as required and using customers own transport for back
hauls.
Previously all logistics were planned by hand and
processed manually with items allocated to loads by destination. Standard
documentation was issued with each vehicle including Vehicle Load Sheet,
Delivery Notes, Proof of Delivery and Drivers Manifest.
The LINKFresh Logistics Module was deployed to meet
the requirements of VGS providing for all load planning and transport
schedule requirements.
In operation, the Transport Manager can see all of the
‘Requests for Transport’ from the sales team. They can be
grouped by day, by pick up point, by ship to customer/address etc and the
days’ transportation activity can be planned.
‘Loads’ are created and represent one vehicle journey,
but can comprise of multiple pick ups and/or multiple drops.
Pallets are assembled from the day’s production. Specific Lots used
are tracked onto the pallets as well as pallet type and any other packaging.
The days’ loads that were created by the Transport Manager have the pallets
allocated to them as well as vehicle/Driver details
“The integrated LINKFresh logistics system has greatly
improved how we manage our delivery processes” said Ian Parrott. “Better
planning means fewer road journeys. This has minimised our expensive fuel
costs while helping the environment”.
Finance
To manage their financial system needs, the VGS
finance department previously used the Intellect Financial System by
Cognition. This provided base level General Ledger and Sales and Purchase
handling. However, the system was not integrated with any of VGS’s other
systems or processes.
This meant that all input to the system was performed
manually. Previously, an invoice run was performed 3
times a week and then repeated for the EDI system. It was
estimated that an additional 5-6 hours per week were consumed in the
re-keying of invoices.
The implementation of the powerful Microsoft Dynamics
NAV Core Financials totally eliminated all requirements for duplicate entry.
The financial solution has also provided comprehensive reporting and
management accounts information in real time. This covers all areas of VGS’s
operation including Purchase, Sales, Production, Technical, QC and
Distribution.
Having a world class financial application at the core
of the LINKFresh suite has provided VGS with a powerful management tool in a
highly competitive market. By being seamlessly integrated
with the operational processes, vital product and customer profitability
information is available from the system.
The Benefits
The Microsoft Dynamics NAV based LINKFresh solution
from Anglia Business Solutions has led to significant efficiency benefits
across VGS’s entire organisation.
The introduction of the Warehouse Management and
Trading Board element has enabled VGS to significantly reduce wastage and to
manage stock more efficiently. Ian Parrott, VGS Operations Director
comments, “The automation of the capture of data required to manage stock
control was a key win for the organisation. Replacing the VGS
Stock Control Sheet has completely removed the requirement for duplicate
data entry. Consumption of stock is automated through the mobile solution so
the stock situation is always live on the system.
Our Stock Controller previously spent 25% of his time
manually managing the Excel Stock Control Sheet. The introduction of the
LINKFresh solution has eliminated this workload. This has allowed greater
focus on the management of supply and demand resulting in an improved
customer service”.
Ian Parrott continues, “VGS also wanted to make its
operations as environmentally friendly as possible. The
LINKFresh Transport Management and Logistics Module allows us to ensure that
every time one of our vehicles takes to the road, its load is optimised for
the maximum number of deliveries using the most efficient route possible.
This allows VGS to use fuel economically which is a major concern
with the ever-increasing diesel costs. It also helps to reduce our impact on
the environment with fewer journeys.”
The introduction of the totally integrated end to end
LINKFresh solution has also provided VGS with immediate and easy access to
performance data, and with time historic data, as each day, week, month and
year of purchase, sales and invoicing data is entered.
Previously this was hugely labour intensive using spreadsheets. VGS can now
efficiently monitor supplier performance, supermarket mandatory contribution
statistics or consignment profitability data. It also facilitates the
production of management information on sales and purchasing trends as well
as identifying potential up-sell opportunities.
Ian Parrott summarises, “Overall the LINKFresh
solution from Anglia
has enabled us to greatly improve efficiency across the company. We have
reduced administration costs, improved stock management, refined our pack
house operations and become more environmentally friendly”.
Commenting on the success of the deployment Managing
Director Jimmy Russo commented “Changing our whole internal way of operating
to become more efficient was never going to be an easy task. However, the
partnership between David Williams, VGS IT Manager and
Anglia worked tirelessly to achieve an
excellent business led solution that was delivered within budget. We are now
very well placed to compete in a very demanding sector using LINKFresh as a
commercial aid”.
Product & Services
Hardware & Software
- HP DL380 Server
- Microsoft Windows Small
Business Server 2003
- Microsoft SQL Server
2003
- Back-Up Exec SQL Agent
- Microsoft Dynamics NAV
Ver 4.03
- LINKFresh V1 –
LINKFresh Foundation, Supply Chain and Logistics Modules
- LINKFresh Mobility
Suite
Services
- I.T Infrastructure
Audit & Wireless Survey
- Business Consultancy
- Project Management
- Windows 2003 Server
Set-Up & Optimisation
- SQL 2000 Set-up &
Integration
- Microsoft DynamicsTM
NAV & LINKFresh® Bespoke design, Deployment & Testing
-
LINKFresh Mobility suite – design & deployment
For Further information contact:
Anglia Business Solutions Ltd
Harston Mill
Harston
Cambridge
CB22 7GG
UK
Tel: +44 (0)1223 873400
Fax: +44 (0)1223 873401
Email: linkfresh@angliabs.com