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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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Emydex Door-to-Door in Junee Lamb, NSW, Australia

Emydex complete the system implementation with new customer in Australia, Junee Lamb, NSW

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Junee Lamb is one of New South Wales’ leading sheep meat processors and exporters. With a focus on high quality chilled lamb for the domestic market as well as having significant export sales, Junee process over 3500 head of lambs daily. Junee also provide a service kill and boning operation for other customers such as major supermarket chains who wish to market their own product. All product is certified Halal and some product is processed as organic lamb.

Factory Floor Production Control System

Junee Lamb had a requirement to upgrade their existing factory floor production control system at the plant in Junee, as well as their Sydney wholesale and further processing systems, to a modern, flexible, user-friendly system which fully integrates all processes required for the procurement, slaughter, processing and sale of meat products.

Previously the company were operating with two separate factory floor data collection systems that were disconnected, and the company realised it would be more beneficial to their business to upgrade these systems to a single production management solution, offering one version of the truth, that could be tailored and customised to suit their specific business requirements.

Junee Lamb needed a system that would integrate with their existing back-office financial system, and also needed to incorporate an off-the-shelf label design system that allowed for the integration of foreign text in multiple languages, such as Arabic and Chinese.

Over the past 12 months, Emydex software engineers based in Australia, installed their Manufacturing Execution System (MES) across the entire business operations, including the lamb factory and wholesale centre. Emydex software modules implemented includes the Emydex Kill line & Payments module for stock procurement and payment, Carcass Management Module, Processing & Packing Module used for boning room production management, and the weigh-labelling of product, as well as the Emydex Warehouse Management module, used to manage and report on all factory stocks.

Many benefits have accrued from the implementation of Emydex, including the ability to cost stock purchased prior to processing, to determine a forward selling price. Another benefit is providing detailed costings reporting once skin returns, credits as well as all purchasing costs are known. Feedback to service kill operators and suppliers can be produced as soon as a lot is complete and emailed to customers.

For the domestic trade, the ability to quickly enter orders, and to produce consolidated production requirements and picking sheets, allows the orders to be accumulated during the day. Hanging product is weighed across an Emydex terminal, so invoices can be produced by delivery run from the terminal, as soon as loading is complete. This ensures accurate documentation is produced with invoices travelling with the deliveries. Similar functionality in the Sydney operation has allowed for significant growth with continued customer satisfaction.

Junee are a market-driven company who enjoy a reputation for top quality product and are seen as a market leader, especially into to the Asian market where the Junee Gold brand is recognised as one of the premier Australian brands. Consequently, virtually all stock is produced to order and is often labelled with customer order information (such as port marks) and often have complex, multi-language multi-label requirements.

Centralised Specification System

A key benefit of the system is having one centralised ‘specification’ system, where labels designs are stored with foreign text generated from the product specifications ‘real time’ using the actual text and thus not requiring images or conversion codes. All customer production requirements can be entered into a plan, which in turn generates the daily works orders, touch screen product buttons, all of which are linked to sales orders and labelling requirements. Order requirements eliminate costly over-production, and allow order fulfilment and shipping to be easily managed.

End to End Solution

By providing a fully integrated, ‘end to end’ solution Emydex have provided a platform where efficiencies have been gained in all areas of the business and allow for information to be readily available. Ease of use has ensured user acceptance has been high with minimal impact on the day to day running of the business as the system was rolled out. With 24-hour support in place, Junee can be assured that support is available 24×7 to provide comfort as the company goes ahead with plans to greatly expand the business over the next 12 months.

‘Having run the business across a number of disjointed systems previously, with little by way of fast-responding support, the business has greatly benefitted from have one, fully integrated, easy to use system. Testament to this is our recent and continuing smooth expansion, maintaining our reputation for top quality products and service. The Emydex system has provided significant benefits from its flexibility, ease of use and ability grow as we do. With Emydex now managing our ‘pasture to plate’ processes we feel confident we can meet the challenges as we expand into the future’.
Heath Newton, Managing Director – Junee Lamb

For enquiries contact [email protected] or call Emydex on contact us

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Electronic Sheep EID / NLIS system for Sheep & Goats

VICTORIA – AUSTRALIA:

With the compulsory recording of individual sheep RFID ear tags due to commence now in Victoria (June 2017), Emydex Technology, a world leader in Traceability software systems for the food industry, is well positioned to not only meet this new requirement, but also to add real value for small stock processors.

Emydex links directly to the National Livestock Identification System (NLIS) database, so data captured by the Emydex systems regarding received and processed animals, can easily be retrieved and uploaded the to the NLIS system.

By supplying a fully integrated system that links purchase appointments, deliveries, sale yard purchase data, animal welfare and quality assurance with on-floor processing data, a number of significant benefits are provided. These include data accuracy, minimal manual data input and full integration of the supply chain.

‘By integrating Emydex’s RFID data capture solution into the processing and payment chain, Wodonga Abattoir can gain full traceability and true individual carcass costing whilst complying with the new regulatory requirements. This gives us significant benefits and reduces manual data input by leveraging the inbuilt NLIS integration and sophisticated costing system that Emydex provides’. Rod Scarvell, Wodonga Abattoir.

P&L by Animal

A key feature of the Emydex system is the ability to produce a ‘P&L for every animal processed’ without having to manually key costing data or averaging costs over multiple animals.  By automatically processing the XML post sale datafiles as supplied by the saleyards, not only is the purchase data for each lot recorded and the lots for processing automatically created, the individual RFID (ear tag) numbers are stored against the supplying agent and the price paid.

This RFID data can then be matched back to the agent on an animal by animal basis, irrespective of when processing occurs or if stock is mixed prior to processing.

Additional costs can be applied by default on a saleyard or direct supply basis and can include freight, droving and, branding costs, commissions etc. so the full cost of each animal delivered to the yards can be determined.

Flexible Payments

With a user definable payment grid combined with the ability to include expected skin and other revenues the true cost of the stock to the processor is available. It is also possible to generate the slaughter floor costs (kill fee) for all purchases so stock can be costed ‘to the boning room’.

Naturally this also allows for the production of recipient created tax invoices, agent reporting, AUSMEAT feedback sheets and government levy accruals etc. which can all be emailed directly from the system to the relevant parties.

eNVD system

Emydex is also one a few ‘integrated’ systems that is certified by the MLA to integrate to the new eNVD system and thus provides the ability to receive NVD data electronically, which is fully integrated to other Emydex system modules. This provides the ability to not only store the relevant data from a legislative point of view, but also to utilise this data to drive the rest of the system by matching received livestock to the eNVD and then to the lairage, kill agenda and payments with minimal data input.

Being a fully integrated, flexible system built on modern .NET technology, with powerful on-floor data collection systems linked to a user-friendly back office system, Emydex, a system proven in over 30 livestock processing plants around the word, is able to offer the following advantages .

Emydex Sheep EID system benefits include:

  • The ability to create ‘appointments’ and lairage lots direct from the purchase advice data sent by the sale yards with no manual input (XML file)
  • The ability to match individual small stock animals back to the agent details of the appointment via the RFID to obtain the true cost of the animal (for costing).
  • The ability to add additional costs to a sale yard purchase such as agent commissions, droving, transport (up to three transport companies per purchase), feeding etc. all of which can be defaulted by sale yard provider. This then provides a true cost of stock to the plant by animal.
  • Track sale yard average costs for boxed lots if not RFID tagged.
  • Report on costs by provider (i.e. all freight or droving costs by supplier for a time period) to match to supplier invoice for reconciliation.
    The ability to record small stock EID data on the slaughter floor.
  • NLIS database interface inbuilt in the system negating the need to export/import or use any third-party applications. By having all of the current holdings etc. in the Emydex database (automatically downloaded) information can easily be match automatically to kill records.
  • An MLA certified eNVD solution integrated to the NLIS database and which provides the ability to create appointments from the eNVD data.
  • Flexible ‘three level’ payment grid with a second ‘fall through’ grid for animal that do not meet the criteria on the primary grid applied to the purchase.
  • Settlement schemes that automatically apply charges and rebates to supplier invoices associated with that scheme.
  • Record charges that apply to the invoice plus charges that are plant costs e.g. ‘processing levy’.
  • An optional facility to update any kill data from the back office after the kill.

Emydex Sheep Payments system benefits include:

  • Farmers (RCTI)
  • Hobby Farmers (no GST)
  • Advise agents of revenues for agent supplied over the hooks purchases (Buyer Advice).
  • Match sale yard agent invoices to the stock killed. Also allow for combine payments to the sale yard itself (VLE).
  • Record sheepskin sales and generate RCTIs to the purchasers.
  • Allow for the recording of all costs associated with a service kill and invoice those based on number of head processed.

Other system benefits include:

  • Email reports directly from the Emydex application without printing, scanning and emailing. Combine RCTI and feedback sheet as one email to supplier.
  • The ability to store general ledger codes per transaction type (e.g. fees, levies, purchase types etc. he facilitates the interface into accounting systems. Note interface not standard).
  • Flexible, easy to use data collection screens that can be combine or separated as required (i.e. a separate sex and dentition station or both functions on one).
  • Standalone grading stations that can run without the previous stations being available.
  • The ability to switch, at the flick of an on screen ‘switch’, between grading printers (for different ticket sizes etc. or in the case of a printer break down).
  • The ability to take an input from a panel reader and change to a wand reader should the panel reader fail (again at the flick of an on screen ‘switch’).
  • Data collection screens that can increment body numbers automatically and only be updated when necessary i.e. a breed station that only need to be updated if the breed needs to be recorded for a particular animal.
  • Inbuilt QA system with transport quality (cleanliness, bruising points etc.) and animal welfare check forms (which is able to be used in all the Emydex modules to provide a full quality management system).
  • Modern ‘.NET’ Microsoft SQL Server database environment.
  • Inbuilt report writer that allows IT Staff to generate reports in house.
  • Over 30 Emydex staff worldwide to support the application.
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Euro Quality Lambs are live with Emydex Kill Line & Payments System

SHROPSHIRE-UK:
Euro Quality Lambs Ltd (EQL) is a lamb and sheep abattoir capable of processing 12,500 carcasses a week with onsite boning and further processing facilities. The majority of EQL production is sold in carcass form, both to the UK and throughout Europe.

EQL is one of the largest specialised and dedicated Halal meat processors in the UK.

In 2014 EQL recognized that their ageing production management system was in need of updating in order to satisfy both customer and legislative quality, traceability and veterinary requirements. After a detailed review of market suppliers of meat processing software in both the UK and Ireland, Emydex Technology were chosen to supply a new Lamb kill line system to EQL.

Installed over a number of separate project phases, the Emydex software installed was configured specifically for EQL, by tailoring the Emydex standard Lamb kill line system to deliver functionality from livestock procurement right through to carcass & box dispatch.

Hardware costs were kept to a minimum by reusing the existing scales, printers and barcode scanners. The only new hardware installed (supplied by Emydex industrial hardware partner MWS Ltd) being three new industrial touch-screen computer terminals. A single OCM was supplied to enable labelling of boxes (both offal and primals).

Rizvan Khalid (Senior Director) of Euro Quality Lambs commented “having met the Emydex team and seen all of the product development, project delivery and customer support teams based in Dublin, we felt confident that we could work with Emydex. Since then our project has been implemented in a timely manner, and has met and in some cases surpassed our expectations.” Khalid added “One differentiator with Emydex over the other factory floor systems we evaluated was the ability and ease with which the Emydex system can be modified and configured to work in line with our existing EQL business processes. We had many new ideas that we wanted to incorporate into our new system. The flexibility inherent in Emydex means everything is possible”

Commenting on the installation, David McMahon CEO with Emydex in Dublin said “Rizvan and the management team in EQL had a very clear vision of their system requirements from the outset of the project, that was the automated collection of production data from factory door-to-door, enabling accurate reporting on production yields, quality and traceability information in real-time.”
For more information on the Emydex system click here or contact Emydex on +353 1 8855990

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7.5m Head of Livestock

Those in charge of the mammoth administrative task of buying and tracing 7.5m head of livestock per year in Ireland have emerged intact from the horse burger controversy.

Much of the credit must go to companies like Emydex in Dublin.

Emydex software is designed to manage food production processes from door to door, from arrival of animals to the abattoir, through kill line, boning hall, warehousing and dispatch.

The system includes real-time links to both the government-run animal movement and tracking systems as well as quality assurance schemes, and provides for full meat traceability.

It manages the complex system of payments to farmers, but also enables customers to run their food production lines more efficiently; manage, control and report on stock; analyse their yields and costs; and report on food chain traceability and factory and operator performance.

Today, Emydex is running in four out of the top five meat producing companies on the island of Ireland, and in more than 40 plants spread all over Ireland, Northern Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales and France.

The company is celebrating its rollout in the Dawn Meats Group, one of the largest suppliers of Irish and British beef, pork and lamb in Europe, and an Emydex customer since 2007. It is planned to complete the Emydex roll-out across the group in 2013, including the lamb processing in Ballyhaunis.

Emydex also supplies software to Kepak, and the Dunbia Group and Moy Park in the UK. The software runs on any compatible hardware system.

Just how complex the challenge is can be seen in the very first step of the meat chain, procuring livestock and paying for them.

Each year, Irish export plants buy almost 1.4 million cattle, 2.5m sheep, and 3.5 million pigs …

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Emydex rollout in 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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