UK confectioner installs IT solution in record time
with the implementation of a comprehensive IT supply chain
solution.
The UK-based manufacturer of Glacier Mints and other popular sweets had an end-August target for shutting down its earlier system, provided by its former parent company. Supply chain solutions provider SSI had the new 25-user system ready for go-live in record time, facilitating a switch-over three months inside the deadline.
Fox's Confectionery finance director Peter Roberts claims that the company was very conscious of the amount of work involved in replacing a full ERP system in such a short timescale.
"Staff from both Fox's Confectionery and SSI on the project team were committed and highly motivated to meet the deadlines," he said. "They achieved it, having put in a great deal of time and effort to ensure everything went smoothly. Live running on the new system did identify some areas for further review but overall, it was very successful."
The new supply chain solution includes a Tropos browser, White Paper Printing, Application Designer, Active Workflow, and Business Information Templates. Also in the contract were CODA Financials, Cognos, Crystal Reports and two servers. The system is operated remotely by SSI's managed services division.
Tropos gives Fox's Confectionery an integrated interface with its external sales agency, Food Brokers. This provides faster, more accurate input for production planning and profit forecasts. Reports that used to be prepared manually each month are now updated daily.
"Tropos is designed around the individual's role in a food manufacturer, and fully integrated with desktop applications," said SSI managing director Trevor Lewis. "This means users manage the information in the way they want to use it - TROPOS does the rest."
Lewis believes that the Fox's deployment went particularly well. "They were already experienced ERP users, so for us it was a case of replacing the existing legacy system and providing a modern system to meet the increasing challenges as the business grows."
Implementation of traceability systems will become obligatory for all operators in the food chain in the EU from 1 January 2005. This means a business must be able to identify all of its food, food products and feed suppliers and all the businesses to which they have supplied food or feed to.
In addition, the information needs to be systematically stored, to be made available to inspection authorities, upon request. A proposal to introduce a similar system, the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Act of 2002, has been adopted in the USA.
All this means that the market for comprehensive supply chain solutions is burgeoning as suppliers, manufacturers and retailers rush to meet legislative mandates and achieve production efficiencies wherever possible.
