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Emydex live in MeatCo, Namibia

WINDHOEK – NAMIBIA:
Emydex today announce that their factory floor Data Capture, Production Reporting and Traceability system is now live and operational in MeatCo (Namibia)’s main beef processing plant in Windhoek, the capital of Namibia.

The beef primal deboning system in Windhoek is the first of an eight phase project that will see Emydex systems rolled out across MeatCo’s six beef processing operations in four separate locations in Namibia, as well as integrating Emydex to the Table Bay Cold Store in South Africa.

The two year, Euro 300k contract includes system rollout to Meatco’s two export approved slaughter and boning plants in Windhoek and Okahandja. Both plants are capable of slaughtering up to 1500cattle per day. The naturally grass fed Beef for which Namibia is famous is supplemented with Beef from Meatco’s own feed lot at Okapuka.

The Meat Corporation of Namibia (‘MeatCo’) also operate two further non-export abattoirs owned by the Namibian government but managed by Meatco, in Katima and Oshakati, which will both see Emydex installed. Finally a Wholesale beef processing plant and a cannery (both on the Windhoek site) will operate Emydex’s production management system.

Having pre-configured MeatCo’s customer specific business requirements in Dublin during February, Emydex staff were onsite in Windhoek during the Months of March and April, further configuring and customising the Emydex system to comply with the local market requirements of Meatco’s main export plant.

Phase one of the Windhoek project covered the carcass chills, carcass dispatch, boning hall, primal and carton packing, finished product stock, carton dispatch and integration to Meatco’s Sage X3 ERP system. Emydex are currently working on the Meatco Wholesale plant in Windhoek, soon to be followed by the Cannery and finally the Windhoek Beef slaughter line.

The company are targeting September 2014 as a likely roll out date for Windhoek system into Meatco’s second export plant in Okahandja.Due to the inherent flexibility and usability of the Emydex system Meatco are planning to roll out the Emydex system in the Oshakati and Katima abattoirs themselves,with remote support from Emydex as needed.

Commenting on the first phase of the Emydex system roll-out, AndriesTaljaardt,Meatco’s Windhoek Plant Manager said

“While slaughter continues uninterrupted, system upgrades are currently being effected at our Windhoek abattoir to improve the effectiveness of operations and maximise output in order to cater to growing customer demands.

Because of these demands, and the fact that preferences and specifications are continuously changing, we have to move into the direction which the market is moving. We have installed a new Production Management Software System (Emdyex) and layout in our Windhoek abattoir deboning department, which allows for a lot of value addition to our products. The Emydex system controls the volumes and all the information on the deboning floor and is responsible for the production recons and the labelling of products.

With the new layout, we have introduced an additional vacuum line and an additional frozen line. With that, we can now put up to 420 carcasses through deboning per day within normal working hours. For May, we are looking to put more than 6600 carcasses through deboning. Round about June, once the system is fully implemented, the number of carcasses we want to put through deboning is about 7000.”

In addition Andries said “We chose Emydex given it is a highly technological system that is used in many international abattoirs that adhere to European Union standards. Meatco is a pioneer in quality standards compliance in Namibia and is one of the first companies to achieve certification for international standards like ISO 9001 and HACCP.”

Commenting on the Emydex system roll-out, Nico Weck, Group Chief Financial Officer at the MeatCo group said “since implementing Emydex’s shop floor barcode labelling and scanning system at our Windhoek primal deboning operations, our managers now have instant access to accurate reporting on our Yields, Stocks and Traceability”.

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Emydex rollout across Dawn Meats Group

Dawn Meats Brand
An Emydex customer since 2007, the Dawn Meats Group is one of the largest suppliers of Irish and British Beef, Pork and Lamb in Europe.

Last year (2012) was a milestone year for the group as it secured a 5 year €300m contract for McDonalds, in addition to building a new state of the art patty plant at Carroll’s Cross, Co Waterford, as well as acquiring West Devon Meats in South West England. This follows the group’s acquisition of the Duerden beef abattoir in the Lake District, and the upgrade of their beef slaughter and processing plant in Cardington, UK in 2011.

Dawn Meats began rolling out Emydex’s Production Management software system across the group during 2008. Four years later, Emydex continues to operate as the group standard factory floor data capture and production and traceability reporting system in 11 of the 13 plants within the group including Dawn Meats France.

From Carcass intake, through boning, further processing, packing, box stock and dispatch, Emydex captures and reports on production data, enabling Dawn Meats to analyse and manage their stocks, yields and dispatches, whilst maintaining full food chain traceability.

Commenting on the Emydex system roll-out Shane Slattery, Group IT Manager with Dawn Meats said “Emydex is a central pillar of our strategic IT plan going forward, and our goal now is to concentrate on completing the roll-out of Emydex to our primary processing sites by year end. This plan may seem aggressive, but we believe that it is achievable on account of the inherent flexibility of the core Emydex product to handle any differences in the business processes required in our disparate sites”.

Plans are to complete the Emydex roll-out across the group in 2013, with the implementation of the system at Dawn’s Lamb processing plant in Ballyhaunis in Ireland, as well as the roll-out of Emydex’s kill line & payments systems to all of Dawn’s slaughter plants within the group.

For more information on the Emydex kill line system contact Emydex on +353 1 8855990

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Emydex Beef Kill Line goes live in Euro Farm Foods.

Euro Farm Foods
Euro Farm Foods operate a beef slaughter plant at Cooksgrove, near Duleek in Co. Meath. The present business is unrecognisable from the small local abattoir taken over in 2001 by Michael & Agnes Fox. Continuous investment in infrastructure and personnel has helped the business establish and succeed in a demanding customer driven market.

With a view to further development of the business, in late 2010 Euro Farm Foods decided to upgrade from their previous factory software system to Emydex’s Kill line and Carcass Management system. After a period of design, installation and implementation, the go-live was complete in June 2011.

The Emydex lairage system in Euro Farm Foods links to both the AIMs and Bord Bia’s Quality Assurance systems in real-time, retrieving and verifying animal details, as well as farm quality assured status. Their upgraded kill line system includes an ear-tag sequencer, Grading/Weighing Stations, as well as Carcass Dispatch and Offal Packing terminals. Euro Farm Foods now also operate Emydex’s multi-currency Cattle payments system for animal settlements and cheque/remittance printing. The payments module also provides Euro Farm with the functionality to interface with their financial software package.

Commenting on the Emydex project, Ciaran Boyle, Financial Controller with Euro Farm Foods said; “Any decision to switch management information software is difficult due to a multitude of factors involved. After researching the factory software options which would best fit our business, we were impressed by the product and the people that are Emydex. It was reassuring to discuss our needs with people who knew and understood our business. This worked particularly well during the development of the cattle payments module. Difficulties encountered during the implementation process were not allowed become problems with agreed solutions delivered. Users have the benefits of improved accurate and reliable business reporting, stock controls, traceability and quality information. The support tools and staff also deserve a mention. Their assistance has been of particular help to our business.”

David McMahon, Emydex CEO added ‘as Euro Farm Foods are a single plant customers it was crucial Emydex provided Euro Farms with a cut-over to Emydex with as little disruption to production as possible. We initially implemented our Carcass dispatch module on an offal packing and carcass dispatch terminals, while interfacing back to their existing kill line system to extract and report on kill line activity. Once we were happy offal packing and carcass dispatch were all working fine, and the reports were correct we swapped out their existing kill line and payments systems with Emydex and switched over to Emydex entirely.
For more information on the Emydex system click here or contact Emydex on +353 1 8855990

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Emydex Lamb Kill Line system’s now live in Kepak plants

Emydex’s Lamb Kill Line system was implemented in Kepak’s Hacketstown Lamb slaughter plant in February 2011. Following on from a go-live of the same Lamb kill line system In Kepak Athleague in December 2010, this latest system go-live marks the completion of Emydex’s upgrade to all of Kepak’s kill lines in Ireland with six kill lines now running on Emydex, four of which are beef. This leaves only the Beef and Lamb kill lines in Kepak’s Wakefield plant in the UK due for completion in August 2011.

Similar to the Emydex Beef system, the Lamb kill line system allows for online real-time validation of a farmer’s status within Bord Bia’s Lamb Quality Assurance Scheme. This operates at Lamb lot level giving instant feedback as to whether Lamb farmers qualify for the Bord Bia quality assurance scheme or not.

The capacity also exists with the Emydex system for online integration to the Department of Agriculture’s AIMS system for notifying DAFF of animal movements to slaughter factory and kill. Kepak are using the AIMS system for reporting Beef movements in all of its beef kill plants.

Features of the Emydex Lamb kill line system include:

  • High Speed Lamb Processing
  • Automatic destination code assignment
  • Operator friendly running totals
  • Tally roll printing
  • Automatic switching to next lot when current log complete on Ear tag station (Sequencer)
  • Post grading lambs are assigned individual IDS by the system allowing for full traceability on entering boning hall and dispatch

Commenting on the recent Lamb Kill line systems going live, Jim O’Neill, Group IT Manager with the Kepak Group said “it became apparent that our existing Lamb kill line system had approached end of life and additionally any changes required for future advancements would be difficult to undertake. Accompany this with further enhancements at both the Lairage stage (AIM’s and Bord Bia checks) and floor based data collection terminals (QC based activity) as well as the fact we use Emydex now door-to-door it became an easy decision to make.”

O’Neill added “On ‘go-live’ everything went smoothly in both Athleague and Hacketstown and I personally could not ask for more on this. The added fact that data is now more accessible / structured for reporting as well as having the full support of Emydex who understand the meat business is a huge help for any future regulatory changes or internal customisation and it has proven an extremely successful rollout for Kepak on not just the lamb but also the beef implementations to date.”

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Kepak gets the Emydex Treatment

kepak-frozen-division-banner
Emydex technology was formed over six years ago with the aim of designing and developing data capture and production management software for the food industry based on open technologies. Emydex’s founders spotted a gap in the market place, as at that time the majority of available systems were unreliable, out-dated and tied to specific hardware suppliers.

Roll on six years and today Emydex software is in daily operational usage in over 30 plants owned by some of the largest single and multi-site food processors in Ireland and the UK, such as Dawn Meats, Dunbia the Kepak Group and O’Kane poultry.

Greater Control

Kepak’s journey with Emydex began in 2007. “Previous to Emydex, we had a number of separate in-house systems that weren’t integrated, so it was difficult to gain a true real time view of production. The Emydex platform gives us greater control of our production, better visibility of data, and a better understanding of the data that is critical to drive our business including Yields and Traceability,” says Jim O’Neill, group IT manager with the Kepak Group.

Today Emydex is running end to end in Kepak’s beef slaughter and processing plants in Clonee, Kilbeggan, Hacketstown, Athleague, Cork and Ballymahon. Emydex’s Lamb kill lines are scheduled to go live in Kepak’s Hacketstown and Athleague plants over the next few weeks. “We’re currently working on a project to complete our last Emydex project in Ireland, Cork Retail. We’ll also be looking at our Wakefield plant in the UK, and hope to have the implementation well advanced by year end,” says Jim O’Neill.

“What’s different about Emydex is you’re working with people who understand the demands of the food industry very well. Sometimes end users don’t always know what they want, Emydex have the ability to visualise an idea, without knowing the final solution, and see it through to completion” Industry knowledge coupled with a flexible approach to development allows for the delivery of solutions that adapt to suit customer business processes rather than the other way around. Jim O’Neill continues: “Our previous production management system was developed in-house. For Emydex to deliver a system to Kepak that offers the same level of flexibility, whilst at the same time being a totally reliable and robust solution, is testimony to how well Emydex software has been developed and deployed.”

Unique Feature

One of the unique features of the Emydex system is the Carcass management module. This incorporates a Carcass Splitting engine used to break down and track quarters, and maintain stock in terms of derived weights. “Carcass management gives customers the ability to maintain accurate carcass stocks from time of kill to through boning and dispatch,” Jim O’Neill points out.

Another big win for Kepak was the introduction of a Work Order control process that sits over the whole production process.“Production Work orders are generated in Emydex and issued to the floor so that operators can no longer process without an order on system – a big gain for us,” he explains. The notion of incorporating Work Order control to manage production is an optional feature of the system.

Warehouse Management

“Emydex’s Warehouse management system is the single biggest bonus to Kepak. We are a fast moving business with a high volume of stock movements. With Emydex we now have complete warehouse control and real time stocks down to scan level, without having to compromise on functionality,” adds O’Neill. This functionality includes real time validation at point of scanning an order, where the system warns operators of any discrepancies that arise during order picking, allowing them to take corrective action.

The Kepak group IT manager concludes: “The best way to sum up Kepak’s experience with Emydex is to say that Kepak have experienced operators and supervisors who are 20 years with the company, who with 15 minutes of training are not only competently using the Emydex system every day, but more importantly openly acknowledge how essential and valuable the Emydex system is in assisting them with their day to day tasks.”

Food and drink business
Food & Drink Business Europe, August/September 2010

For more information on the Emydex system click here or contact Emydex on +353 1 8855990

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Dunbia (Preston) complete end-to-end Emydex roll-out in 8 weeks

The Dunbia Group, headquartered in Dungannon, Northern Ireland, recently completed installation of an entire Emydex iWAMS solution at their Retail plant in Preston, England. Dunbia (Preston) is a modern processing facility comprising a beef and lamb abattoir and de-boning facility, and a separate retail packing operation.

The facility has the capacity to process up to 1,500 cattle, 10,000 lambs and 600 tonnes of retail packed product per week. Dunbia originally installed the iWAMS Warehouse Management System module in their Preston plant two and a half years ago in September 2007.

This recent upgrade project covered the entire facility end-to-end from stock intake, to production, packing, yields & costings, warehousing and dispatch, and incorporated Sales Order and Purchase order processing.

“This latest project took just eight weeks to complete from start to finish”, said Jay Adams, IT Service Delivery Manager in Dunbia (Preston).

“The project ran relatively smoothly when you consider the facility never had a transactional system running before, meaning we had to train all our staff over the two months before the system went live. Emydex also provided two weeks on-site support post go-live, which was a great reassurance in case anything went wrong, which it didn’t.”

“In terms of benefits, the system gave Dunbia (Preston) immediate control over systems and reporting. Using the Emydex Data Management System, back office staff had instantaneous access to far more accurate reporting of efficiencies, yields and giveaways and operator performance” Said Adams.

The Emydex software system roll-out coincided with a parallel roll-out of new plant hardware including Marel Terminals, and Avery Scales. This included integration to high-value processing lines incorporating fully automated weighing and box level labelling.

“Emydex’s ‘open architecture’ means it can integrate with any third party hardware, and as all the integration protocols had been written before, integrating was a breeze. Hardware independence is one of Emydex’s key selling points”, said Adams. “We’re not tied down to a narrow choice of hardware; we can pick and choose the hardware configuration that best suits our requirements”.

Another key selling point with Emydex is the flexibility offered within the software itself.

“We rolled out the standard flavour of the iWAMS Retail Solution initially, but over time we have made changes to the system in order to suit the specific ways we work in Dunbia (Preston), and the individual demands of our customers. Its fine to talk about “group standards”, but at the end of the day every facility will have differing requirements whether it’s down to the physical layout of the plant that doesn’t facilitate a ‘standard’ transaction flow, or down to the individual reporting requirements of a MD. So too, every customer or supermarket chain will have different requirements, so your systems have to have the ability to adapt to deliver these changes easily and quickly. That’s what we have now with Emydex.”

About Dunbia

Dunbia is one of Europe’s leading suppliers of beef and lamb products for the national and international retail, commercial and foodservice markets. Formerly known as Dungannon Meats, the group is headquartered in Granville, near Dungannon, Northern Ireland. Dunbia operates from ten sites in Northern Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland.. Out of the total workforce of nearly 3000, some 800 are employed in Northern Ireland. Dunbia supply international markets and UK supermarket chains, including Sainsbury’s, Asda, Iceland and The Co-operative. The firm also includes the former Rose County Foods site in Sawley, Lancashire, and the former Oriel Jones and Son facility in Llanybydder, Wales.
For more information on the Emydex kill line system click here or contact Emydex on +353 1 8855990

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