Cold Storage

Emydex CEO Update

19th October 2021

A note from Emydex CEO, David McMahon

After the year of uncertainty, travel restrictions and lockdowns that was 2020, this year 2021 has seen a gradual return to normality, albeit with the markets we serve being in different stages of recovery, with Europe ahead of our colleagues in the Southern Hemisphere, Australia and New Zealand in terms of numbers vaccinated.

The Emydex country teams, still mainly working from home, are busy working on a number of large customer projects. These include Emydex V5 system upgrades for some of our larger multi-plant customers in Ireland, as well as continuing to build ‘group standard solutions for some of our newer multi-site processors in Europe, Canada as well as New Zealand

Throughout 2021, Emydex has continued to solidify its position as a global provider of MES solutions by building out our people and bases in the further stretches of the world including New Zealand and in North America, where new customers and new employees have been added to both Emydex companies established at the end of 2020

On the Product Development front, our software has evolved from our traditional 3-tiered software stack comprising the core platform, software modules and business logic, to add two new layers of software.

Our new Automation layer includes a suite of software modules such as the DCI (Data Communications Interface) that enables Emydex software to connect to factory floor automated machines and robots via standard protocols (OPC) as well as a new Simulator module that enables our customers to conduct scenario planning, as well as to test Emydex software in advance of the installation of factory floor machinery and to train operators in advance of go-live

Our new EMS layer of software developed for our enterprise-level multi-site processing customers, includes software modules such as Master Data Management, Emydex BI, EMS Exchange, Centralised Reporting as well as App Deployment, a suite of software applications designed to facilitate the central creation and dissemination of data files from group HQ to remote plants, as well as consolidated analysis and reporting.

Finally, our technology mix has expanded beyond our traditional windows desktop applications running on-premise, to complement these with new web-based applications (Blazor) as well as Android applications (Xamarin) such as our new XDA for handheld scanning applications, a replacement for our legacy SDA application running on the end-of-life windows mobile operating system.

Looking to the future, Emydex plans to continue to grow our teams of people in Ireland, North America, Australia and New Zealand, as well as form new strategic partnerships with global providers of Industrial equipment, ERP integrators and MES consultancy firms with specialist knowledge of the workings of the meat, fish and food processing industries.

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

Introducing Emydex Business Intelligence (BI)

3rd September 2021

Utilise Analytics to derive Insights into your production data

Data & Information has been referred to as the oil of the 21st century. Having the right data, at the right time, is vital to the success of any food processor.

The first step in this process is ensuring data is collected accurately, in a consistent method. Once captured, this data should be easily accessible and understandable by various stakeholders in the business.

Analysing data will tell stories and show insights that would otherwise go unnoticed. Analytics enables people to see the wood from the trees, to see patterns and trends in large datasets, that can assist with identifying issues within production environments, identify trends within factories, benchmarking business units, reporting KPI’s and can teach you things about your business you didn’t know before – replacing guesswork and gut feel.

How Emydex will help you strike oil

Emydex’s latest software module, Emydex BI, provides Emydex customers with a slick new interface that allows users to easily access and visualise data from any software system including Emydex factory floor Production systems, Emydex’s Quality Management system, 3rd party ERP systems, other shop floor Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES’s) as well as various other third-party systems.

Cross Platform App

The Emydex BI app, which is available as both a web app running in a browser or Windows desktop app, provides rich data visualisation for end-users allowing them to drill into, slice and dice and filter various data using sixteen different interactive presentation widgets. Connecting to multiple systems, Emydex BI pulls data from multiple sources into one location, where users can find all the answers they are looking for (as well as questions they didn’t have!)

Sitting at the enterprise level of the Emydex architecture, the Emydex BI tool is easily able to connect to multiple plants systems to access the data depending on the level of security configured per user.

Share & Refresh

Share the results easily with the ability to export the entire dashboard results, or an individual widget at the press of a button.

Individual dashboards can be set up with automatic refresh rates, meaning your data is always up to date!

Design With Ease

Administrator users can easily design and update dashboards using either the web or desktop dashboard editor with tools to bring your data to life.

The Emydex BI App has version control built in, allowing you to update and publish documents with confidence.

The Emydex BI tool also supports static reports, meaning you are able to produce your static formatted reports directly from the Emydex BI tool!

Features

Cloud-Based or Windows Desktop
Easy to use widgets to visualise data
Easily filter/drill down/interrogate data
Combine multiple data sources/views into one dashboard
Mobile/Tablet access using the web app
Configurable automatic update refresh rates

Benefits

Reduce reporting time
Increase business awareness
Real-time access to data
Data on the move using mobiles/tablets with the Webapp

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

How QK Coldstores put the competition on ice

24th May 2021

How QK Coldstores put the competition on ice

Serving some of the biggest food companies in South Africa, QK Coldstores wanted to replace their legacy Cold Storage management system with a state-of-the-art solution and become the most advanced cold storage and distribution operation in the country. They turned to Emydex, and we helped them to leave their competitors out in the cold.

Meet the client

With over 150,000 pallet spaces, QK Coldstores is the leading commercial cold storage operation in South Africa. The business began in 2006 at a facility in City Deep, an industrial suburb of Johannesburg. Initially it had the capacity to accommodate 7,000 pallet positions, divided across a broad spectrum of products, including dairy, poultry, fruit pulp, frozen vegetable, beef, pork, lamb and ice cream.

By 2010 the business had grown to the point where it needed additional cold storage facilities. These were added in the Midrand campus nearby. The facility now hosts 150,000 pallet spaces and specialises in a whole range of storage solutions, from specialised confectionary at -14 degrees and ice-cream at -25 degrees to standard storage temperature of -18 degrees.

The company offers a wide range of solutions to a variety of blue-chip customers, from blast freezing, tempering, re-palletising and container loading on the deck as well as offering a primary transport solution. They also offer case picking and currently exceed 300,000 cases per month.

The opportunity

QK Coldstores approached Emydex to assist it move to a higher level of service to its clients. The company wanted a computerised warehouse management system (WMS) that could be tightly integrated with the EDI systems used by some of their largest customers, which included various world-leading food manufactures. This was to help them conduct their core business activities more efficiently, including case picking, blast freezing packing and distribution of dairy, poultry, ice cream and confectionery products.

The way the operation was set up became outdated and Emydex offered far more efficient solutions that were new on the market. That is automated stock allocation, scanning in and out of customer products, online ordering system, live alignment of stock with clients, stock movements and stock balancing are communicated more timeously through an automated system ( its real time and as the transactions are completed)

“The Implementation of Emydex was a big changer that brought tremendous improvements. This Speeded up receiving and dispatches processes, stock taking, cycle counts and tracing stock forward or backwards, whilst reducing the need to use a lot of paper which is friendlier to the environment”
Kelvin Mushure / IT Manager / Project Manager QK Cold Store

What we did

Following an initial discovery engagement, Emydex’s business analysis team proposed that a tailored version of the Emydex warehouse management, configured specifically QK’s Cold Storage operations would answer the brief perfectly.

Emydex installed numerous hand-held scanners at the loading bays so that stock could be registered as it arrives and as it leaves. Handheld scanners were introduced and it improved the accuracy of all stock transactions and movements (Stock taking, receiving, cycle counts and dispatches). Scanning was 50% more efficient than the previous processes we utilised in our previous MWS.

Emydex endeavoured to use existing QK Coldstores’ computers and network where possible reducing the need for any significant investment in new hardware. Emydex solutions engineers configured the software solutions to integrate with the company’s existing management and accounting systems. They also integrated everything with QK Coldstores’ customers systems, where requested, so that QK’s customers could gain accurate and real-time visibility of their stock and their orders throughout the distribution process.

“Emydex took most of the pain and inefficiencies away by giving us a warehouse management system with scanning for a total traceability and tracking no more manual receiving paperwork. They automated sending out receipts to customers by email for flexibility. Emydex worked with our hardware without having to replace and invest in a new IT network or system – we repurposed equipment, saving on capital expenditure and the need to buy new hardware. A big thank you to Dave and Eamonn and the Emydex Team for the help in implementing and understanding of our requirement to our clients which led to little or no disruptions to the operations whilst we carry out the implementation”
Brian Thompson / General Manager QK Coldstore

Going live

Following an extensive phase of system testing, QK’s new Emydex system went live in December 2020, with everything going smoothly and to plan. Emydex engineers were on standby remotely in Dublin HQ to ensure that any problems could be addressed immediately but, even before that, Emydex made sure that all of the QK Coldstores’ users and team members were fully trained in working with the new Emydex solution.

“Going live was smooth… we had the best of support... Everything was explained to help set up and full training. There were no hic-ups with the roll-out and since then all the changes and upgrades went smoothly. This has been the biggest game changer for us to date with lots of positive change – our customers love it.”

Kelvin Mushure / IT Manager / Project Manager QK Coldstore

The results

The results have been outstanding. QK Coldstores estimates that productivity has increased by more than 50% which by far exceeded best expectations for the project. Errors are down and QK Coldstores’ customers now have the ability to see their stock as it arrives, how much is held and where, make orders and track them, specifying pallet composition, delivery dates and time as and delivery locations. For some customers, QK Coldstores’ hands have been removed from the cold storage and distribution process altogether as those customers take complete control of their own stock.

Customers can also use the Emydex web portal to create sales orders online and view and review existing orders, see stock levels and avoid ordering more than is in stock at that particular time.

“The results are clear and obvious: the operation is at least 50% more efficient. It has brought huge benefits for our customers they get automatic stock reports, and they can see any change in stock levels, plus or minus, immediately. Throughout my career and with all of the experience I have had, nothing has even come close to the efficiency that Emydex brings with their ‘can-do’ attitude. They’ll use flexibility in their service and customised development – it’s the best I’ve seen. Seriously…. their integration capabilities are excellent and better than anything I’ve seen anywhere else. The Emydex business model is excellent – the system works well and does so much and completely seamlessly, securely, confidently and compatibly”

Kelvin Mushure / IT Manager / Project Manager QK Coldstore

What’s next?

We are working with QK Coldstores to expand the functionality of the Emydex web portal – it is an evolving solution with ideas coming from clients like this around the world. In the long-term, QK Coldstore’s clients’ customers will be able to initiate and see their orders. the customer will be able to order and track their own stock straight from QK Coldstores. We are looking to expand the fan functionality of the web portal it is involving solution.

“ The scanning system gives a clear indication of the condition of stock with a full audit trail – who did what, where and when. The ability to order online for our customers’ customers has taken away the admin headache of sending an Excel spreadsheet. Now the customer is in the driving seat via the web portal. They can choose quantities and delivery times and places taking our hands out of the creation.”
Brian Thompson / General Manager QK Coldstore

In other’s words

“For us this was a straightforward project for Emydex even though it has had a hugely positive impact for QK Coldstores, even if just looking at benefits in terms of the pure numbers alone. It’s an interesting one too because this customer deals with some of the biggest food providers in the world. Working closely with QK we are making the whole process efficient, streamlined, more carbon-neutral and faster. These are the success stories we live for.”
David McMahon / CEO Emydex

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

Emydex South Africa Market Update

5th February 2019

Over the course of 2018 the Emydex Technology delivery team in Dublin worked in close partnership with Summit Process Solutions, Emydex’s local market agent based in Johannesburg, to successfully deliver three new cold store projects for three new customers based in South Africa. These included the Emydex Cold Store Warehouse Management System complete with required hardware to QK Cold Store South Africa located in Johannesburg, as well as to Table Bay Cold Storage located in Cape town.

A third Emydex system was commissioned for GPS Food Group RSA, also located in Cape Town. The GPS Food Group Cold Store implementation was extended later in 2018 to add further Emydex Production and Traceability reporting modules covering their Value-Added processing operations in the same plant.

The addition of these three new customers, bring the number of Emydex customers to nine in the Southern Africa region.

Stock Maps

Some of the Cold Store Systems delivered include the latest version of Emydex’s Stock Maps functionality. This new functionality enables the Cold Store to view and search against a visual representation of their stock by drilling down through areas and warehouse locations and interrogating stock via graphical views of racks, rows and bays. This latest version of Emydex Stock Maps System now enables Emydex customers to configure, build and maintain Stock Map views themselves in-house via the easy-to-use Stock Map configuration editor.

Distributed Warehouse System

The Emydex Web Application development team in Dublin is nearing completion of a brand-new Distributed Warehouse System (DWS). DWS is a web-based application for Cold Stores to provide remote access to their customers to run self-service queries on their stock, send ASNs and even Sales Orders via the web client to the Cold Store for action.

Other customers include Meat Corporation of Namibia (Meatco), the largest beef processing operation in Namibia. Meatco is running Emydex in several of their processing, slaughter, de-boning and further processing plants, as well as a mobile Abattoir operating in the Northern Namibian region.

In addition, the Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) is similarly the largest beef processing operation in Botswana and operates with Emydex’s Packing & Processing software modules at its three processing facilities in Lobatse, Francistown and Maun.

In South Africa, Klein Karoo Meat - the world’s largest Ostrich processor is situated along the garden route between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. Klein Karoo Meat make use of Emydex’s Shop Floor, Production Control and Traceability Reporting Systems which are running in their three slaughter and de-boning plants based in Oudtshoorn, Swellendam and Graaff-Reinet.

16 Plants Operating Emydex Software in Southern Africa

In total there are now sixteen separate plants operating Emydex Software in Southern Africa, the bulk of which were delivered in partnership with Summit Process Solutions. Summit Process Solutions integrates weighing, labelling, inspection, processing, data capture, factory floor software and IT systems to create tailor made solutions for companies in Southern Africa. Combined with their vast range of industrial equipment like waterproof - computer terminals, scanners, scales, printers etc., they are a perfect match for Emydex’s Software Systems.

Commenting on the Emydex’s success in the region, David McMahon, Emydex CEO based in Dublin said “the success of Emydex in Southern Africa is very much dependent on our local partner Summit Process Solutions. Not only do they supply, install and support all the industrial waterproof hardware required to run the Emydex Systems, but their professional services team assist with the planning, scoping and gathering of specifications required before the Emydex System is configured by the Emydex Dublin team. When the time comes for system testing and go-live, Summit are again on hand to assist with preparations for go-live including testing, training and support. It’s an ideal partnership where each side provide complementary products, services and skills. The Summit team’s twenty plus years of operating in the African region means they have the domain knowledge and expertise needed to have meaningful discussions with both customers and prospective customers alike.”

Rodney Macer-Wright, Summit Process Solutions Managing Director said “In the Southern African market, Emydex offers a perfect software package for our customers as they can offer a complete solution from raw material intake right through to finished product despatch or a standalone system such as the Emydex Quality Management System.

In a changing market such as ours, it is extremely important that a factory floor software keeps up with current trends. With Emydex’s focus being their factory floor software, they are continuously making improvements. They understand the customer’s requirements and are extremely agile in making changes and improvements to the Emydex software solution in order to streamline the customer’s production process. The partnership between Emydex and Summit Process Solutions offers our customers a proven solution with a great match of software and hardware”

Emydex Cold Store System Live in Dawn Meats UK

6th July 2017

Halesowen – England:
Dawn Meats are one of the largest suppliers of Irish and British Beef and Lamb in Europe. They supply premium quality beef and lamb products to over 40 countries worldwide. Since 2007, Emydex software has been Dawn’s system of choice for factory floor data capture, production control, stock management and traceability reporting. Emydex iWAMS has been implemented as the groups standard solution in their 15 production sites located across Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales and France.

Stock Management

In 2014 Dawn Meats bought a 99,000 sq ft distribution center in Birmingham, England for freezing, distributing and storing meat products. The Halesowen facility provides cold storage services for all of Dawn’s manufacturing plants in the UK.
Installed in 2015, the Emydex cold store warehouse system operating at the Halesowen site, provides Dawn Meats with a warehouse management system that manages, controls and reports on all cold storage processes at the plant. These processes include goods inwards, stock palletising, blast-freezing, stock put-away, sales order picking, container loading and order dispatch. In addition, the Emydex platform provides Dawn with the capability to carry out stock transfers, stock takes and stock reconciliation. This in turn provides the business (and entities owning the stock) with real-time accurate reporting of stocks.

Synchronized

Electronic links, which keep the sites Emydex systems synchronized with the Halesowen Emydex system, are in place between the Halesowen cold storage facility and each of Dawn’s production plants in the UK. These links are architected on Emydex’s proprietary ‘E-Transfer’ functionality. This enables the individual sites to send and receive real-time validation and reporting on all stock items shipped into and dispatched out of the cold store. Real-time transactional data on internal stock movements, pallet break-down and sales orders dispatched to customers are also sent via automated electronic E-Transfers.

ERP Integration

“Our requirement was to implement a solution in the Halesowen facility that would meet the needs of a cold storage business whilst also providing the individual sites with visibility into their cold-store stocks and all associated handling and storage costs. In our business model it was important to us that the sites retained the ability to select the individual units they wanted to be picked in order to best meet the needs of each customer.

It was clear that this would require tight integration between the production sites Emydex systems and whatever cold-storage solution was chosen. The Emydex Cold Storage system met most of the requirements of the business as standard. The inherent flexibility within the Emydex platform meant we were confident that we could work with their development team to tailor Emydex to fit our exact needs.

For example, Emydex were able to add functionality to the system to allow for box-level traceability throughout the blast freeze process. For our business, Emydex was definitely the right choice”.

Shane Slattery, CIO with Dawn Meats

Emydex software is integrated with Dawn’s central ERP system. This integration is architected using web-services to allow for complete control over the sales and purchase ordering processes. The ERP integration allows Dawn to draw down sales orders in real-time, manage picking rules, assign sales orders and print customer specific documentation.

Interfrigo extend WMS to incorporate Food Allergen controls

25th April 2012

Interfrigo is the largest independent cold store in Northern Ireland, operating a 136,000 sq ft state-of-the-art cold store with storage capacity for 20,000 pallets. Interfrigo provide 3rd party cold storage for a number of local and international food producers including many of Emydex’s food processing customers. Interfrigo looked to Emydex to replace their existing warehousing system back in early 2011.

“As we manage stock on behalf of some large Food Processing companies who also operate Emydex’s Production Management systems in their factories, it made sense for Interfrigo to replace our existing legacy WMS with Emydex’s Warehouse Management Software system” explains Brendan McAlonan, Interfrigo’s Operations Manager. “The Emydex warehousing system provides Interfrigo with all the usual capabilities you would expect to find in a full-blown Warehousing system, but in addition it provides us with real-time electronic links to our customers who are also using Emydex’s factory floor system. The benefit of this is the ability to manage stock transfers and sales order picking requests instantly and accurately”.

Using Emydex’s ‘Intersite-transfers’ feature our customers also running Emydex are able to dispatch and trace shipments into and out of the Interfrigo Cold Store seamlessly. On the Interfrigo side, goods are verified once received, put-away, picked and dispatched all via Emydex, with the ability to break-down and rebuild pallets to fulfil sales orders as required. Emydex were able to enhance their system to also run a version of Emydex on truck-mounted terminals in all our fork-lifts.” The Emydex system is stable and reliable, easy to use, and totally flexible to allow us to create new forms or reports required by the business without any great hassle” added McAlonan.

Following on from the original implementation, Legislative and Customer driven demands have been introduced requiring the management and reporting of food allergens contained within any food products stored in the Cold Storage facilities. Emydex have further extended their warehousing system to capture and report on the details of any specific allergens contained within every product stored on behalf of Interfrigo customers.

Using Emydex, Interfrigo now electronically record details as to which food products contain allergens such as milk, eggs, wheat, peanuts, shellfish and soybeans etc. whether in powder, liquid or solid form. Once Allergen details have been captured and recorded electronically in Emydex, this allows Interfrigo to review options around storage and put-away to ensure foods containing certain Allergens are stored separately from those without. It also means dispensing with and manual paper-based food allergen control systems, and allows for the instant and accurate reporting on the food allergen status for all food stocks stored within the cold stores.
For more information on the Emydex system click here or contact Emydex on +353 1 8855990

Emydex CEO Update

A note from Emydex CEO, David McMahon

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Introducing Emydex Business Intelligence (BI)