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Ensuring Quality & Compliance Across Four Continents

Emydex recently completed the upgrade of its Electronic Quality Management System (EQMS) to the latest Version 6 of the Emydex software suite.

 

A new product development project that started in 2018, working in conjunction with some of the largest food processors in Ireland and the UK who helped with system design, testing, and validation, the Electronic Quality Management System first went live with an Emydex customer, MeatCo Namibia, in late 2019.

Roll-on five years and the Quality Management System is today operating in over twenty meat, fish, and food processing plants around the world, including Emydex customers in Ireland, the UK, Canada, Namibia and South Africa.

One early-stage customer who adopted the Quality system and implemented it in their six Irish beef primal processing plants is currently extending their Emydex QMS roll-out to all their UK meat processing plants, with three UK plants live, another two currently undergoing commissioning, and a further seven to be completed by the end of 2023. In total over twenty plants will be running the Emydex quality management system, split across two country divisions.

This is very much at the core of the system i.e., the ability to centrally manage and control technical and quality data across multiple divisions, geographies, and plants, in a standard and consistent way.

At present, the system is being extended to offer capabilities for Emydex customers to perform Supplier Audits, and development is underway to offer data capture of Quality workflows, surveys, and audits, via a browser-based application running on Android devices, in addition to Windows OS devices.

Other new additions to the Quality system include product specifications & workflow planning.

 

Product Specifications

Product specifications functionality allows the product definition to be used for various checks based on the check being completed. For example, by completing a check on the dimensions of burgers being produced (Formax check) the workflow can be configured to compare operators’ entries against the product’s configured height, width, and weight. Similarly, if a packaging tare check is being completed, a separate workflow can compare the tare values being captured by the operator.

 

Workflow Planning

The workflow planning functionality was developed on the back of Emydex customer requirements to be able to manage preventative maintenance checks in more detail. This allows a super-user to schedule in more granularity based on timings and users who will complete the workflow.

The Emydex quality management system enables Meat, Fish, and Food processors to manage their Food Safety and Quality Assurance processes. HACCP and PCP can be managed using the system which supports monitoring within the factory, such as Critical Control Points (CCP) and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP’s). In addition, the application includes a document management system where key documents can be uploaded and version controlled, meaning that operators in the factory are always accessing the latest approved documents.

 

Commenting on the Quality system roll-out previously, John Coleman, Group Technical Manager with Dawn Meats said

The result is that resources have been freed up, saving cost. Less paperwork, collection is instant, no errors, less time, no printing, archive space has been freed up, we have instant and easy retrieval of documents – everything has improved and is more accurate.

We got what we wanted which is improved collection, visibility, and use of our data. That instant visibility means we have real-time situation reports. The tangible savings are obvious – less paper and less ink, for example. The less obvious savings are evident too – less time and effort, fewer mistakes and corrections, reduced hold-ups, etc. I can see if people are making the required quality checks and if they are making them at exactly the right times.

 

If you want to learn more – contact our Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, or North American offices

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Farmer Bookings & Feedback via Livestock Portal

Farmer Bookings & Feedback via Livestock Portal

A new web-based appointment booking and feedback system, reduces paperwork, facilitates easier appointments, and provides transparent feedback to producers and farmers in real-time and accurately

Feb 2022

The supply of livestock from the producer to the meat processor is underpinned by the consistent supply of livestock of the correct quality, correct inspection and optimal grading of these animals while processing in meat processing factories. This is applicable to Beef, Lamb and Pork/hog producers and processors. 

This relationship can now also be built-upon and strengthened with the use of a transparent data transfer from the processor back to the producers via a new Emdyex web-based appointment booking and feedback system. This is achieved via Emydex standard APIs that interact directly with Emydex factory floor MES Solutions running on Kill lines in Abattoirs and Slaughterhouses around the world. 

 

Animal Health Feedback 

Farmers could have the ability to make bookings and appointments, receive Health feedback information, download their financial information, as well as receive their remittances digitally through the Portal, reducing unnecessary paper documentation and helping both sides work towards their sustainability goals.

To facilitate the seamless exchange of producer/Processor data, Emydex has developed a comprehensive suite of secure web APIs. These are designed to simplify the livestock supply from producer to processor and offer the ability to surface kill line and grade data about the supplied livestock back to the producer.

 

Farmer Appointments & Bookings

Authorised agents and suppliers can book appointments to supply their livestock to the processor directly using the API calls embedded in a web portal which can be run via a web browser on a desktop PC or mobile device. This makes the process of selling livestock to the processor far simpler than initiating a booking via other means, eliminating double handling of data and reducing the opportunity for errors in the process.

The Emydex Supplier WebAPI Module consists of several API endpoints that can be called to perform various operations, such as registering new suppliers and livestock delivery appointments directly within Emydex, providing details of any generated payments and retrieving relevant data collected on the Emydex kill line. 

 

Visibility of Grading & Quality Data

This can include the data from the Emydex veterinary inspection stations, grading data and if applicable data from chiller grading processes (MSA). The data retrieval from the kill line via the APIs can be performed at a per delivery or lot level or down to the individual sides of the carcasses forming part of a particular delivery or lot. This offers much greater visibility of the grading and quality data registered to each carcass by the processor and provides comprehensive feedback to the supplier on the condition of the livestock supplied to the factory. How each carcass was graded informs how each carcass was ultimately priced for payment. This can assist the supplier in improving the quality of supplied livestock to meet the producers’ requirements.

By combining the Emydex Kill Line, Central Animal Payments System and Livestock API modules in one wholistic solution, Beef, Lamb and Pork livestock suppliers and processors can achieve a higher level of digital integration when considering the supply of animals to the plant and also receiving performance feedback on the quality of supply and pricing calculations applied to the delivery.

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Emydex CAPS off year with Livestock Payments System

Emydex CAPS off the year with a new Livestock Settlements System

For most Meat processors, the procurement of raw materials, especially Livestock, is by far the largest variable cost for the business to manage. Therefore, being able to ensure the Accurate andTimely payment for this stock is a key requirement. Many Meatprocessors choose to differentiate themselves from their competitors based on the speed and accuracy of payment to their suppliers. Emydex’s recently redeveloped Central Animal Payment System (CAPS) is designed to meet this requirement specifically, as well as to provide functionality that provides parameter-driven flexibility to meet all current and future requirements.

 

Calculating Animal Settlements

The key to the success of the system is the ability to design animal payment ‘methods’ that can be added to the system as a component to suit individual customer needs without modifying the existing system. This means that if there is a requirement for a new way of paying a supplier, whether it be based on a contract, supply volumes, average market process, or a complex grid-based system, these can be developed and ‘locked in’ to the existing system as a snapshot for later retrieval.

As standard, the Animal Payment System caters to multiple payment grids where any data from the kill floor or kill ‘lot’ (delivery) can be incorporated into multiple axes of a grid to generate a payment.

This might be a weight range and fat score or a meat marbling score and dentition range i.e. virtually any combination of data elements that can be measured as part of livestock processing.

Multiple grids can be used to accumulate values such as a supplementary ‘bonus’ value or to allow a record to pass to a second grid if the criteria for the first grid e.g. a carcass that is too heavy or old for the first payment grid. This ‘fall through’ process can be repeated until a grid that matches is finally found.

 

Cattle Payment Invoicing and Adjustments

The system is capable of producing recipient-created tax invoices (RCTI) for suppliers (farmers), third-party agents, commissioned livestock buyers, transport companies and service or contract kills (an accounts receivable transaction rather than the usual accounts payable).

User-defined adjustments, again using virtually any of the data in the system, can apply adjustments to this invoice to either deduct money for items such as carcass faults, levies, transport costs etc. or apply a rebate such as a ‘skin’ or hide credit. These can be applied automatically using pre-defined ‘settlement schemes’ (groups of adjustments) or added manually on a case-by-case basis.

 

Carcass Costings

As a carcass is produced, the system can calculate the cost for the carcass per kg (or lb) by running each carcass record through the various livestock settlement processes to generate the total cost, so not only is the cost of the purchase from the supplier included but also the cost of freight, commissions etc.

Costs that do not appear on any invoice such as a kill fee can also be included if required. This allows for carcasses to be costed before the payment is finalised so if the carcass is disposed of via a sale or boning process, the cost can be reported as part of the input to the process for accurate costings. Alternatively, carcass costs can be updated once the payment is finalised.

 

Animal Payment Reporting

Invoice and costing data can be updated to an in-house or 3rd party provider ERP or Financial system for payment with full audit trails and costing audits available in the CAPS system. Standard reports are available and data from the payment system can be surfaced using the in-built Emydex Business Intelligence (BI) tool.

Kill data can be from Emydex kill floor systems or up-uploaded from multiple sources and sites to allow for a centralized system for consolidated processing and reporting.

 

Centralised Payments catering for large Enterprises

Given the flexibility and extensibility of the system, current and future needs can easily be met with an ‘out of the box’ system. Once configured the system can generate payments, email all parties involved and update costs and financial systems at the push of a button. Payment processes that would traditionally take hours can be streamlined and the labour requirements significantly reduced.

Accurate costings allow for true profitability costing as the input costs to sales and further processing are readily available.

With the ability to run as a centralised process taking data from many sources, both large enterprises to single site operations can all gain tremendous advantages from the new system.

 

If you want to learn more – contact Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, or North America offices.

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Know your Suppliers – Introducing Emydex SRM

Emydex Supplier Relationship Management Portal

Managing the suppliers in your supply chain has become increasingly more challenging due to ever-changing legislation, as well as disruptions to the supply chain caused by COVID restrictions.

Food processors need a software system that enables them to interact, collaborate and manage their customers and suppliers in a fast, efficient, straightforward, easy-to-use manner

Without a single system to handle collaboration with such entities, food processors rely heavily on emails, spreadsheets, phone calls and other manual means to manage their customer and supplier relationships, which due to the complex nature of food processing and the supply chain for it to function, processors often can fail to meet the regulatory requirements set out by government bodies and customer demands.

Supply Chain Management Software

To combat these issues, in conjunction with a number of our Tier 1 leading customers, as well as extensive market research, Emydex recently released version 1 of our Supply Chain Management (SCM) suite of software – that is the Emdyex Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) portal. This web-based, cloud-hosted software application enables your suppliers to securely log into a web portal to complete self-assessment questionnaires/assessments (SAQ), collect relevant documents, submit product specifications and manage contacts.

The supply chain manager for meat, fish or food processors will be able to manage everything related to suppliers completing SAQs and managing their supplier’s approval status & risk rating. As well as this, they will be able to receive notifications and view all information & results submitted by the supplier.

Emydex Supplier Portal

The Supplier Relationship Management Portal is the first phase of the entire Supply Chain Management that will be developed and will assist Meat, Fish and food processors in managing their supply chains.

If you want to learn more – contact Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, or North America offices

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Introducing Handheld Scanning on Android

The latest Version 6 release of the Emydex Warehouse Management and Coldstore Management modules now includes a new Android application, the XDA.

This new application can manage all the factory floor warehousing functions previously carried out on handheld devices running the Windows Mobile operating system.

The legacy SDA application is being phased out since Microsoft announced its withdrawal from the handheld mobile device industry several years ago, leading to a lack of supply of the physical hardware (scanning devices) required to run this Emydex software application.

Written in the Xamarin Android programming language (giving its name to the XDA), and three years in the making, the XDA scanning system is today live in several of Emydex’s existing customer plants in Ireland, Australia, and Canada.

Initial early-stage feedback from Emydex customers is overwhelmingly positive:

A huge improvement on the speed and user interface of the app
Beef Processor, Australia.

Operators are happy with the new devices being implemented into the warehouse, the screen is easier to use with their freezer gloves on
Poultry Processor, Europe.

A Beter User Experience

As this is a brand-new application, new technologies and architecture have been used. During the initial design phase of the project, performance and reliability was front of mind. Using Xamarin technologies, Emydex were also able to significantly enhance the user experience by improving the user interface of the application, making it easier to navigate the application and get the information that the operators require to them instantly.

With the new XDA application running on android devices, customers can source a wider range of devices, generally at a much lower cost compared to previous devices running the Windows operating system.

The Emydex Warehouse Management module allows customers in the food processing software industry to track all types of inventories such as Raw Materials, Work in Progress (WIP), finished goods, packaging, and ingredients. The application can operate at the pallet level or serialised box or case level. For Beef, Lamb, and Pork Processors, the Emydex Warehouse Management module also manages carcass stocks.

This system enables meat, fish, and food processors to maintain accurate stock levels across their business from door to door, whether raw material stocks, WIP stocks, or finished goods stocks. Customers have accurate and real-time visibility of their stocks across the entire factory, door-to-door.

Continued Support

Emydex will continue to develop and upgrade the XDA application to replace all the functionality that was offered by the legacy application, whilst also enhancing and extending functionality into additional modules outside of warehouse management, such as Lairage Management and Livestock Appointments.

If you want to learn more – contact Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, or North America offices

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Enterprise Management Software

A New Era In Food Enterprise Management Software Applications

Emydex’s new suite of Enterprise Management Software (EMS) applications are designed specifically for multi-faceted food processing companies, those which are mainly multi-plant operations, usually overseen by a group HQ plant. Typically, these plants are spread geographically across a country or several countries and would be large food processing organisations. 

It is difficult to maintain data integrity across these often-complex businesses, is often labour intensive and prone to human error with the duplication of information across multiple systems. 

Emydex Enterprise Management System (EMS)

Emydex’s answer to this problem is the Emydex Enterprise Management System (EMS) suite of software which comprises a series of web apps targeted specifically at maintaining data integrity, reducing data entry, and improving control across plants. 

Emydex Enterprise Management System

From a system architecture point of view, the EMS layer resides between the customer ERP system and the various operating plants.

The EMS layer of the Emydex software stack is made up of several web apps tailored toward solving these problems for multi-plant customers.

 

Business Intelligence (BI)

Emydex BI is the latest app of the Enterprise layer allowing customers to surface data to provide visual real-time and trending analytical dashboards. Sitting at the corporate level allows integration to multiple plants to surface data as well as other third-party systems such as ERP & financial systems.  Find out more here

 

Master Data Management (MDM)

Master Data Management (MDM) is designed to control data integrity to ensure it is consistent across all plants. The Master data management module allows customers to centrally manage master data such as products, label designs, kill line destinations as well as other required data.

This removes the effort needed by plant staff to replicate data into each instance of Emydex which instantly reduces the risk of human error. With EMS MDM, corporate users can centrally control all aspects of master data which creates consistency across the business. An example of this is that if a label design is managed centrally, the label will look identical, no matter the plant it was produced from, which from a customer's point of view can be critical. This can also reduce incorrect labelling which can cause product recalls and market rejections, impacting the business brand and reputation.

 

EMS App Deployment

This app empowers the Emydex customer's IT department to take control of deploying the Emydex applications out to the plants. This increases IT security and allows the IT department to pull updates into the business network to then choose when to deploy to the individual plants. This in turn allows the customer to be more self-sufficient in relation to updating plant's MES software outside of production.

 

EMS Exchange

EMS Exchange is Emydex’s newest approach to integration between the plants and third-party systems such as ERP systems and cold stores. It allows for the configuration of rules to route data from one system to other(s). This reduces the customisation required to integrate the Emydex applications into other third-party systems

 


Enterprise Quality Management System (EQMS)

Emydex’s first Enterprise module was the Enterprise Quality Management System (EQMS) which allows customers to centrally control, capture, store and report on various quality & technical aspects of their operations.
Find out more here…

 

The Future of EMS

The Emydex new product development team are busy working on new apps and features to further extend and enhance our offerings, including additional EMS modules such as Centralised Product Specifications, Production Planning, Payments, Livestock Appointments and Yield Costing. 

Watch this space!

 

If you want to learn more – contact Ireland, Australia, South Africa or North America offices

Request a Demo