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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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Turning over a new leaf in New Zealand

Turning Over A New Leaf In New Zealand

How Emydex helped the largest livestock processing company in New Zealand to replace a 25-year-old Abattoir system with a new state-of-the-art solution that worked so well, it’s planned to go into 13 other facilities. The pilot operation in Christchurch was originally scheduled for a three-week installation but was up and running in just four days. However, the conversation with Silver Fern Farms started over a decade ago, the tendering process was exhaustive, and preparation and simulation reached a whole new level of precision.

 

Meet The Client

Silver Fern Farms is the largest livestock processor in New Zealand with a 30% market share, 7,000 employees working across 14 plants and a turnover of NZ$ 2.7b. They represent 16,000 sheep, cattle, and deer farmers, exporting to 60 countries worldwide. The Silver Fern Farms headquarters is in the centre of Dunedin on the South Island.

Emydex has been working on a deal with Silver Fern Farms since 2010 which makes this the longest sales cycle in the company’s history. Over the course of the 10-year discussions, the Emydex team paid several visits to Silver Fern Farm’s head office in Dunedin, as well as beef processing plants across New Zealand, and various delegations from Silver Fern Farms travelled to Ireland to visit Emydex at their head office in Dublin, as well as Emydex customer plants in Ireland and the UK.

 

The Opportunity

In 2019, Silver Fern Farms informed Emdyex that they were ready to start a formal project to replace their ageing factory floor traceability and production control system systems. The pilot plant was to be their primal beef processing facility in Belfast, Christchurch which had been using the same system for 25 years.

As part of the formal tender process, Emydex pitched against two other international specialist firms, as well as a local supplier of MES software systems. The pitch process comprised a comprehensive selection process that included two days of presentations and meetings, involving demonstrations of nine scripted scenarios (traceability, packing, etc) over seven hours before thirty people from the Silver Fern Farm’s group, followed by a second day of meetings with their internal IT team as well as their engineering department. In the end, Emydex emerged as the preferred supplier and was awarded the contract for a beef primal processing pilot project in their Belfast plant in Christchurch.

 

What Emydex Did

The project was originally planned to go live in July 2020 when the Belfast plant traditionally closed for a 3-week period, but the COVID-19 pandemic brought everything to a halt. Due to the pandemic, the project was moved back by a year. During that time, the project scope expanded to include other technical aspects for delivery, for example, a whole new system for animal assembly.

The new Emydex system configured for Silver Fern Farm’s handles everything from the booking and intake of the animals and follows the flow through the factory floor including the stun station, live weight, head inspections, carcass inspections, reinspection, and grading. Everything meets the strictest New Zealand government veterinarian standards and procedures, and it all integrates with the existing CRS system for streamlined payment processing.

 

Emydex System In Use

 

Automation was a big part of the project, replacing the factory floor terminals with integration to their programmable logic controllers (PLCs). Each hook has an identification on the hook and the system collects information at every station along the line.

Automation like this is the main difference we see between the European and the Australian and New Zealand markets. The level of investment in automation is higher but it pays back in labour efficiencies – machines don’t catch COVID.

James Grennan, Technical Director, Emydex

 

Going Live

The project finally went live in November 2021 following a comprehensive testing and training schedule for all operatives that included simulations, dry runs, full monitoring of everything at all stages and then an Emydex team onsite. The client anticipated a three-week switchover, but the joint teams managed to complete the switchover in just four days.

 

Emydex On-Site Training

 

The Belfast plant operates two shifts, producing 20 hours a day which makes it a very busy plant. Emydex supports the plant at all times, 24x7, with a team of Emydex engineers spread across New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, and Canada, following the sun.

 

From our support offices in New Zealand, Australia, Ireland and Canada we can follow the sun so that should anyone in Silver Fern Farms have an issue, they can call Emydex on just one number and there will be someone at their desk to take their call and, if it’s a critical issue, it’s a sequential line, downtime can cost thousands of dollars a minute. We can analyse and resolve immediately 24 hours a day with our four teams around the world.

Lorna Daly, Head of PMO, Emydex

 

Emydex today have a team of five people employed in New Zealand and ten in the Emdyex Australia office in Brisbane, supporting Silver Fern Farms as well as two other New Zealand food processing companies. This makes Emdyex the largest Irish employer of permanent staff in New Zealand, according to Enterprise Ireland, for whom Emdyex are a client company. In fact, the introduction of Emydex to Silver Ferns Farms originally came via Enterprise Ireland’s Australia office, through one of their market-office staff based in New Zealand.

 

Enterprise Ireland has been a huge help to Emdyex in Australia and New Zealand. The EI Australasia team are so supportive of Emydex and other Irish companies, it’s reassuring to know we have these local supports in place for whenever we need them

David McMahon, CEO, Emydex

 

The Results

As you would expect, the new Emydex system has brought new levels of efficiency and productivity to the Silver Fern Farms facility in Belfast, Christchurch. What is so impressive is that this was a very efficient and well-run operation even before we went near it but soon after go-live, Silver Fern Farms confirmed that they had processed more cattle in one shift than they had ever done before and finished earlier too.

 

The project went well. Emydex is a great system and the staff love using it. The system gives good information and reports, it is easy to use and works well. There are efficiencies in that all the data is in one area, and we no longer have to review or get reports in more than one system to get the information we want. Staff on the floor, as well as leaders and management, have benefitted the most when it comes to information and reports that the Emydex system can supply. Their engineers and technical people are very good; their project managers are very knowledgeable and able to keep us informed

Phillip William Kilgour, Plant Manager, Silver Fern Farms

 

Bringing all different systems into one system will have benefits. This means one system for our end-to-end site process - from livestock booking through to container load-out to the customer. Talking to some of the workers they like the new Emydex system and it has helped them

Shaun O’Neill, Regional Operations Manager, Silver Fern Farms

 

Feedback from Belfast has been very positive, and it’s great to have all site functions in one system as well as having timely access to important information for decision making.

Simon Limmer, CEO, Silver Fern Farms

 

What’s Next?

Based on the success of the pilot project, Silver Fern Farms have accelerated its plan to roll out Emydex to its 13 other processing plants spread across New Zealand. In 2022, the plan in Phase 2 is to tackle Production Scheduling, Packing, and Automatic Labelling along with the implementation of Emydex’s Enterprise Management System (EMS) for Master Data. The EMS system will be used to centrally manage data from the head office to individual plants. In conjunction with Phase 2, additional teams will make any adaptions needed to the existing Livestock processing system required to roll out to other bovine sites and then move on to the implementation of the ovine and venison systems.

 

In Other’s Words

In terms of their professionalism… as a meat processing company, Silver Ferns employ project managers, process managers, business analysts as well as internal QA testers. They installed their own Emydex training lab and ran the kill line with dry runs using big blue plastic barrels (blue cows) hanging from the hooks to simulate carcasses. This level of attention to detail was impressive to see. Emydex is a better company for the experience we had working with Silver Fern Farms.

David McMahon, CEO Emydex

 

One of the biggest and hopefully unique issues with this project was that our team members on the ground had to travel from outside NZ and so quarantine for two weeks in advance of the go live. There was a lottery for the MIQ quarantine places, and it was tough waiting for when the places opened. Even close to the go-live flight cancellations caused some issues with our team having to travel long hours by car. Due to COVID, Emydex has adapted to not having the full team onsite for the launch with team members working remotely. The team worked via video calls and cameras were installed to give a view of the factory floor. We had easy access to remotely control each terminal.

Shane Hayes, Product Manager, Emydex

 

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

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Improvements by the country mile

How traditional, community-oriented company Ashbourne Meat Processors embraced change through Emydex

Meet the client

Ashbourne Meat Processors is one of Ireland’s most successful exporters of premium chilled beef products. Founded in 1985, the company exports high quality products all over the world and is proud to be recognised as a family whose expertise and knowledge is passed down from one generation to another. There are nearly 200 people in the company family working in two facilities in the centre of Ireland – Roscrea (slaughtering and cold-storage facilities) and Naas (deboning and cold storage).

Ashbourne Meat Processors is a firm believer in leveraging advanced technology and production facilities.

The opportunity

Ashbourne Meat Processors’ two plants were essentially working in isolation from each other on outdated systems that required a lot of manual input and data entry. The abattoir in Roscrea would take in livestock and create the relevant paperwork. When the carcases were transferred to Ashbourne Meat Processors’ facility in Naas (and to other facilities operated by the company’s clients all over the country), new paperwork would have to be created. This was extremely inefficient and left the company open to human error, duplication and lack of visibility and control.

There were also issues with compliance as the legacy systems used in both operations were not integrated with the Department of Agriculture systems and so there was a need for even more data entry.

“One of the biggest problems is we didn’t have integration with the Department of Agriculture. We knew we had to move on, to integrate and put all of this technology to work for us. Emydex came on board and handled everything. 95% of the carcasses go from Naas to Roscrea and all the paperwork is now electronic and automatic and we can monitor everything remotely which, as the pandemic has proved, is more important than it was.”
PJ Butler, Roscrea Plant Manager

What we did

Emydex is the acknowledged leader when it comes to process development for the food industry and when Ashbourne Meat Processors decided to overhaul the IT infrastructure and embrace the latest processing technology, they called Emydex.

Following a project scoping exercise, the team agreed to divide the job into two phases – one for the slaughter plant in Roscrea and the other for the Deboning operation in Naas. Connecting the two facilities was an obvious but important improvement.

In phase one, The Naas Deboning operation was upgraded by Emydex to deliver an end-to-end factory floor solution. Today Emydex handles the entire processing procedures within this plant, from Intake, Into / Out of Boning, Packing, Dispatch and Warehousing. Emydex also generates all the appropriate Dispatch Documentation, transfers traceability data to customers and allows for full forward and backward traceability. Prior to Emydex’s introduction, Work Orders were paper-based and were phoned down to the operators. Now this is all controlled within Emydex which means there is less likelihood of human error and the whole process is now more streamlined and controlled.

In phase two, the abattoir and cold storage facility 100 kilometres away in Roscrea, County Tipperary, was completely overhauled with everything from animal intake, supplier POs, inter-company paperwork and all procedures – from processing to packing, including sales picking – newly streamlined and automated. Labelling from boning through storage and out in orders was part of the specification as was the automatic electronic generation of all documentation. Real-time data is now updated constantly between the two plants and a new dispatch system created.

Going Live

Emydex systems went live in Naas in January 2019 and Roscrea in October 2019.

The results

Animal intake at the abattoir is now seamlessly and automatically integrated with the Government’s veterinary body, AIMS. Ear tags are scanned and all animal data is confirmed and registered and the Department of Agriculture is notified automatically. This improvement alone saves thousands of man hours every year and completely eliminates human error at the intake point.

“The old system was labour-intensive and setting up jobs needed a lot of work. Emydex brought in a lot of standardisation which has helped us to complete jobs quicker, weigh boxes quicker and see yields a lot clearer. We became 8% more efficient overnight… we highly recommend Emydex.”
Donal Houlihan, Naas Plant Manager, Ashbourne Meat Processors.

There used to be two separate systems and all sorts of mistakes were created by so much manual data entry. This led to delays in cattle payments and problems in registering the passport details of some animals. Now there is just one system and those errors have been eliminated.

Everything from animal intake to carcass dispatch and box generation is automated, tacked, reported and visible all the way from start to finish.

Overall, and almost immediately, efficiency was improved, paperwork virtually eliminated, errors drastically reduced, and profitability increased throughout the company.

In other's words

“The savings in administration were immediate – we saved a labour unit in the office immediately – and the piles of paperwork and stacks of files are a thing of the past. We’re almost paperless now, except for the cheques which some of our more traditional farming suppliers prefer over electronic payments. I estimate that actual physical paperwork has decreased by 95% and that’s a huge achievement.”
PJ Butler, Roscrea Plant Manager, Ashbourne Meat Processors

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A new day at Dawn Meats

Dawn Meats is an outstandingly successful meat processing group. When they wanted to streamline their quality management system on the factory floors, they turned to Emydex

Meet the client

Dawn Meats is a family owned business that was established in Waterford, Ireland in 1980 and has grown to become one of the largest and most important beef and sheep processing groups in the industry. The group employs over 7,000 people in dozens of countries, including 10 sites in Ireland and 12 in the UK, exporting to over 50 countries worldwide.

Every year, Dawn Meats processes over 1 million cattle and 3 million sheep, generating more than €2 billion in turnover for the company and contributing over €1.67 billion to rural economies through 30,000 farms in Ireland and the UK.

The numbers are staggering and so is their success.

The opportunity

Dawn Meats developed their own in-house quality management system which largely relied upon manual, paper-based checks all along their factory floors.

While this was rigorous and helped to maintain the very highest levels of quality products for the company, it was inefficient, creating delays, tons of paper, hours of data entry and leaving the door open for error. The old manual way of working involved lengthy printing, handing out, filling in, returning, checking, countersigning and storage of paper records. On top of that, files had to be physically retrieved in the event of audit.

“Dawn Meats wanted to do away with paper-based quality checks along the floor and to use the data they collect in a far more efficient manner to drive improvements. They wanted a quality management system that would create actions and alerts automatically, so that managers could see in real time what has been done. This would mean they could make more informed decisions and corrective actions, improve compliance and reduce issues.”

David McMahon, Emydex CEO

Since 2013, Emydex have being developing their Quality Management System capable of being used in single site as well as across multi-site Group processors like Dawn Meats. Emydex’s Enterprise Quality Management System (EQMS) is, in short, a software system that allows food processors carry out their factory and supplier quality and audit checks on tablets, reporting instantly in the back-office, replacing all paper-based quality check sheets on the factory floor.

A perfect fit for Dawn Meats.

What we did

There were five main drivers behind Dawn Meats decision to select Emydex 

The first was Emydex gave them a single system, with our quality module sitting alongside all other Emydex factory floor Production or Warehousing modules on a common platform.

Next, our solution can be fully integrated to shop floor industrial machinery, capable of scanning barcodes, meaning no manual keying of data needed. 

Thirdly, the Emydex EQMS system can be installed on-premise or in the cloud. Emydex don’t force customers to operate their QMS out of the cloud, they can install on-prem if required. 

Another key differentiator is the system can work off-line as well as on-line for all compatible mobile devices, using local databases. Meaning operators can switch to off-line mode when capturing quality data in areas with poor or zero wi-fi coverage. 

Finally, the system is very configurable in-house including an easy to use QC workflow builder tool. This function allows in-house QC personnel (non-IT people) to design and build their own Quality workflows in-house, including QC surveys, QC check-sheets and quality audits, without the need to involve either Emydex developers or their internal IT department.

Going Live

The Emydex EQMS system has been running in at Dawn Meats Irish facilities in both Rathdowney and Carroll’s Cross plants for a number of months. 

At this point Dawn’s group technical QC team have configured internally almost 200 separate QC workflows in Emydex including for example, Abattoir and Boning hall pre-op checks, GMP audits, metal detector checks, glass and hard plastic, knife register and attendance checks etc. 

Once built centrally, such workflows can then be used across all the group’s sites. Having completed site testing over the past number of weeks, the system is currently being rolled out to Dawn’s remaining processing plants in Ireland including Grannagh, Ballyhaunis, Charleville and Kilbeggan.

The results

Emydex EQMS helps Dawn Meats to streamline the QMS processes across their factories and to ensure they are working to the most effective QMS system. As it standardises the QMS and FSM systems across the group it improves compliance and shares best practice throughout all of the facilities. 

Using the Document Management System included within the system, sites can share generic documents and processes, and tailor the specifics to the site. This reduces time lost in writing up documents and figuring out procedures and risk assessments. 

The system creates actions, alerts, notifications and alarms in real time and automatically tells them when they are out of compliance, forcing the immediate implementation of corrective actions.

It improves compliance and reduces issues in announced and unannounced audits, reducing risk with defective product, product recalls and customer satisfaction.

The Emydex system frees up resources to drive product quality improvements and also frees up archive space and storage. It will give central management a holistic view through instant visibility of all factories in one centralised system, making KPI reporting easier and that maximises safety, quality and compliance. 

Finally, this accurate QMS data can drive operational processes and business decisions, helping continuous improvement by providing instant effect data.

In other's words

Speaking shortly after the Emydex system go-live in Dawn’s second site at Carroll’s Cross, John Coleman, Dawn Group Technical Manager in Ireland 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.”

Working with Emydex has been great - they understand their system and have been very helpful. Emydex created a system for support that includes excellent on-going communication. We have worked with them over the past decade on traceability, and so we trusted them. I like how their QMS system is so flexible, and how they could configure it to how we wanted to work – not something you get with an out-of-the-box solution. That flexibility meant that we were given artistic license as to how to develop our own workflows.

John Coleman 

Dawn Group Food Safety and Quality Manager 

What’s next?

The next phase is roll out Emydex’s EQMS to all 8 Dawn Meats factories in Ireland. Over 2020 the system will be introduced to Dawn’s sites in the UK.

 

For more on Emydex's Quality Management system, read:

Electronic Quality Management Systems for the Food Industry


or contact Sales in any of our Dublin, Brisbane, South Africa or Toronto offices

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When an innovator works in partnership with a leader

What happens when an innovator works in partnership with a leader.

A new Emydex system has helped production run a lot smoother for Danish Crown subsidiary KLS Ugglarps in Hörby, Sweden

A blue-chip client

When Danish Crown approached Emydex about designing and implementing a kill line system on a pilot basis for their plant in Hörby, naturally we were very interested in talking to them.

After all, Danish Crown is one of Europe’s largest meat processing companies and the world’s largest pork exporter. As a group it is involved in a long list of other food products with subsidiaries that include a number of very well-known names in the industry: Friland, KLS Ugglarps, Scan-Hide, Tulip Food Company, Tulip Ltd (UK), Sokolow, Dat-Schaub, ESS-FOOD and WestCrown.

Danish Crown was established in 1887 by Denmark’s first co-operative meat company and today has market access to more than 130 countries around the world. It has sites spread across 10 countries in mainland Europe, the UK and most recently China. Working with this blue-chip organisation presented a great opportunity for Emydex.

The pilot site

The pilot site was the operation in Hörby, Sweden and the brief was to create a modern factory floor IT system that was both highly-configurable and flexible that Danish Crown could potentially roll out across multiple production sites within the group

A challenge for Danish Crown was that through acquisition of processing plants around the globe, their factories use various software solutions of different origin and version, which were difficult to for their Global IT team to manage, as they weren’t integrated, and so some factories were not running as efficiently as they could be.

How we approached it

We assembled a project team of Emydex solution engineers and managers working in Dublin and Danish Crown’s central IT team working in Denmark and they collaborated to commission and configure a state-of-the-art Emydex software solution for the Hörby plant.

The new system featured a number of Emydex modules including Beef and Lamb Kill Line, Primary Packing and Processing, Yield Reporting, Carcass Management and Order Processing/ ERP Integration.

One of the more important elements we had to include was integrating with the Swedish Central Animal Database (CDB) which enables files sent by the government listing every live beef animal to be imported into Emydex. When animals are entered at the stables as they arrive at the factory, their ear tags can be validated against the central database.

Going live

We were ready to launch phase one within 5 months of contract signing, and in January 2019 the collective team from Ireland and Denmark met at the Swedish plant, to prepare for and go-live with the new Emydex system. The implementation went very smoothly thanks to rigorous testing and preparation.

The results

Hörby now has a robust factory floor solution and the most immediate result has been increased productivity for KLS Ugglarps and Danish Crown. “With the new Emydex system one of the added benefits is that it enables vet inspections all along the kill line in real-time. Hide processing has increased visibility and carcass intake is smoother via ASN or parse barcodes which eliminates onerous data entry” said Shane Hayes, Business Analyst/Technical Sales with Emydex

In other’s words

Speaking shortly after the Emydex system go-live in Hörby, Henrik Frøsig, Director, Solutions & Innovation, Global IT, Danish Crown commented,

“From day one we were able to slaughter and process more animals than usual. The kill line didn’t stop as it usually might, and everything was more stable and more efficient from the get-go. Our operators are very pleased with the solution… it has a nice interface and does its job very well. They didn’t need much training at all because the screen tells everyone what they need to do and when.

Efficiency and ease of use is why I recommended it to our other facilities around the world. Plus Emydex service is very good, they react very well to our requests and are getting better and better at what they do as they scale up with us. They listen, respond and react and that’s why we are taking them out of the pilot phase and into our group operations worldwide.

(It is) a good system with a great overview with all the information we need at our fingertips. Inventory overview, for example, is now an easy thing for everyone to see immediately. Emydex gives us data we never really had access to and that means innovation and growth is coming to us too, bringing maturity to our own factory here.”

What’s next?

The next stage of the project will include rolling out the Hörby solution to the other six sites in Sweden and then approach Danish Crown’s global network of sites.

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