MANUFACTURING CASE STUDY: Foodcorp | Speciality Foods
TransLution™ reduces waste and improves product consistency for Speciality Foods
Speciality Foods, a division of Foodcorp (Pty) Ltd, is a major supplier of ready-to-eat and convenience food products to South Africa’s premium food retailers. Products include biltong, sandwiches, dairy desserts, salads, party foods, hamburgers, wraps, rotis, rye breads, various flavoured flat breads, ready-to-eat garlic breads and a range of heat-and-eat bread products.
The Challenges
Speciality products have a short shelf life and require strict temperature control to ensure quality is maintained. All
Speciality Foods production facilities have an ISO 22000 certification.
TransLution™ software was selected for managing receiving, production, stock controls and dispatch operations in their 12,000 M2 Gauteng plant. TransLution’s™ capability to tightly integrate physical movement of materials from receiving through production with Speciality Foods ERP software was a key consideration.
In the case of raw material receiving, incoming stock is validated against ERP purchase orders and grading results are recorded to ensure materials meet minimum standards and improve accuracy of receiving.
The implementation
Each step in the production process has been defined in the TransLution™ software and each crate of raw material, byproduct or waste is weighed and recorded in TransLution™ in real time. Yield results are provided for specified stages in the production process, identifying problems to be addressed during production and reporting total net yield for every batch.
Recording of lot number controls, labour, machine usage and quality testing results on TransLution™ touch screen
computers feeds reporting and provides validation of quality standards and documents information in the event of a
product recall.
The Outcome
Previously yield results were only available days and often weeks after production were completed. Dirk Spies, ERP, IT & Costing Manager, summed it up by saying ‘We used to see historical yield data and ask why.’ ‘Now we see yield results during production and we know.’
Speciality Foods deliver around 18 000 lugs per day on trucks slotted into loading on 30 Min. intervals. With TransLution™ lug boxes of finished goods are labelled during production then scanned against customer orders at dispatch ensuring product is loaded onto the correct truck dramatically reducing shipment and billing errors and ensuring fresh product is delivered to the retailers.
According to Russell Kleyn, Director at TransLution™ Software, ‘TransLution™ software is designed to track the physical movement of materials through a production or distribution process to aid in production of consistently high-quality products and to reduce waste.’ ‘We are pleased to be able to work with clients like Speciality Foods to achieve great results.’
