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Emydex MES for Poultry Processors

Emydex MES for Poultry Processors

After two lengthy and competitive sales cycles, competing against other international suppliers of MES solutions, Emydex recently signed two-tier 1 multi-plant poultry processing customers in Canada and Poland.

In conjunction with a leading international hardware provider to the poultry primary and secondary processing industries, Emdyex is taking this opportunity to upgrade and further expand on Emydex’s Poultry processing software solutions. These customers looked to Emydex with two separate requirements, Group MES consolidation and increased production with investments in expanding capacity and offering to their customers.

Primary Processing

Quite often we find that customers have several providers of hardware & equipment across the business, capturing valuable data but not being able to easily access this information leading to manual, delayed & inaccurate reporting. This in turn leads to production inefficiencies.

With the introduction of Emydex’s Automation layer to our Poultry Processing technology stack, Emydex is able to work with a multitude of international hardware and machine providers to capture and collate information from across the entire process into one central system.

Emydex will now be able to capture data covering Primary Processing, including Transportation, Live Bird Handling, Kill Line & Defeathering & Evisceration and continuing into Secondary Processing.

Using the Emydex Automation layer, we can collect and store information such as temperature, humidity, stunning, etc, against a lot which assists to provide confidence in Animal Welfare practices at the plant. As flocks travel along with the chain, we monitor and report on the performance of individual machines assisting with preventative maintenance as well as tying all the data collected along the chain together to determine the overall OEE

 

Secondary Processing

Emydex MES for Poultry Processors

Further expanding the Emydex Automation layer into secondary processing, we are able to capture various information depending on the machines that the customers choose to implement. Whether customers have manual grading devices or choose to implement camera-based grading devices, we will collect the grading information, as birds travel through the distribution system, we will monitor and display in near-real-time key metrics about the distribution of the birds to different drop-off points.

Once birds enter the Cut-Up and deboning machines Emydex will report on the planned vs actual production which allows customers to monitor orders for completion to ensure no over or under production. Using the Emydex Packing & processing module, we can collect the output weights of the process and report on expected vs actual yields.

“Being able to provide a solution to connect machinery throughout the entire Poultry Primary Process and automatically streamline and surface valuable information such as animal welfare, product quality, production efficiency and OEE whilst maintaining door-to-door traceability is essential for our customers”
Shane Hayes – Product Manager

 

Further Processing

In another Emydex Market, a major Canadian Poultry Processor has grown through acquisition and plans to continue its expansion but recognized that they need to implement standardized shop floor processes across all plants and provide centralized visibility of Inventory. Current shop floor solutions were from multiple vendors, with varying degrees of integration, from all manual to partial integration with their current ERP vendor.

The poultry processor plans to start the implementation with the further processing plants and then expand the project to their primary processing plants later. Emydex systems would take over control of a portion of the product flow and gradually add other areas over time. Initially, Emydex will be deployed to handle finished good labelling, order picking, inventory control, and integration to the client’s ERP and 3PL Cold Storage.

In the next phase, the system would be expanded to receiving and production intake of raw protein ingredients. In the final phase, the system would incorporate receiving and production intake of dry and wet ingredients.

The Emydex system's rollout will be a significant undertaking and will be a multi-phase, multi-year project. At the full completion of each plant rollout, the goal is to achieve the following stated project objectives:

  • Standardize one corporate MES/WMS solution that will evolve with technological improvement and support Poultry Processor across all divisions.
  • Eliminate targeted manual data entry processes with enhanced automated data integration
  • Provide the foundation systems to connect to other third-party systems i.e. In-line scanning and auto labellers, robotic palletization, etc
  • Provide system-based 2-way, door-to-door traceability
  • Provide production yield tracking and reporting
  • Provide a modern user interface and strong reporting tools
  • Utilize out-of-the-box enhanced functionality
  • Centralize control of Finished Goods Box and Pallet labels across all plants. This will ensure consistent labels across plants and reduced internal administration with centralised control.
  • Emydex Enterprise Management System will provide centralised control of master data to the varying plants and tight integration with the ERP and external cold storage vendors.
  • Emydex will provide control and visibility of inventory of Finished Goods, Raw Materials, Packaging and Ingredients at the lot and best before date level.
  • The initial implementation will capture basic production yield but over time they plan to implement Emydex’s more advanced yield, BOM and costing solutions.

Closing Statements

“In today’s competitive market with continued labour shortages, poultry companies need to leverage technology to be as efficient and productive as possible. The way to accomplish those goals is with consistent processes across plants and an integrated shop floor solution that provides timely data to manage and control the operation”
Terry McCorriston, NA Sales Agent

 

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

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Central Animal Payments (CAPS)

Central Animal Payments (CAPS)

Emydex will be releasing its new Central Animal Payments System (CAPS) for user acceptance testing in the next few weeks.

As a complete redesign of the widely used kill line payment system, it now provides the core ‘engine’ which is used to not only generate payments to livestock suppliers but also to those other entities involved in supplying livestock such as buyers, agents, transport companies.

In addition to generating payments, the system can produce accounts receivable invoices for service processing allowing suppliers to be paid.

 

"This redesign has incorporated years of learnings and expertise in delivering Animal Payment systems covering all species across all our chosen markets”
Shane Hayes, Product Manager

The Engine

Key to this is a new rule-based calculation engine is that can use multiple inputs to generate both the ‘grid’ or ‘schedule’ calculations as well as the deductions and allowances (also known as charges and rebates) that can apply to a payment. These can be grouped as any number of ‘settlement schemes’ and applied to invoices based on supplier, supplier groups and other attributes to a lot. The tax calculations around making both payments and deductions on one invoice are fully supported allowing the generation of a ‘Recipient Created Tax Invoice’.

In addition to charges that can affect the invoice, other ‘non’ invoice costs (or revenues) that affect the cost of the livestock can be added and thus affect the true cost of the delivered livestock. These can include such items as processing fees, Government fees & schemes, feeding, transport, droving and other fees which a customer may have, to derive a cost to the processing facility. This allows individual carcasses to be costed into the boning room to assist with determining the cost of production.

Carcass costs can be calculated at the time of production to assist in processes where the carcass is consumed in production before the finalised payment can be determined such as in a hot boning process (actual costs can be ‘back stamped’ onto the carcass once payment has been finalised).

 

Multi Plant or Single Plant compatible

Another major benefit of the redesigned system is to cater for a centralised payment system where data from multiple sites can be managed in one system. This allows processors who have multiple sites or who have processing done as a service, can collate and generate payments from one central system. This may be via a Cloud-based instance or an on-premises installation. To facilitate this and based on the fact the new core system is ‘independent’ of the user interface, versions of the system using a Web or Android front end can be deployed depending on the circumstance of the user. This will also allow for Web apps to be developed that interact with the system providing online farmer feedback as well as agent and buyer connectivity.

"This new module, combined with our Enterprise Management Module for multi-site processors is all part of Emydex’s strategic plan to enhance the Emydex Manufacturing Execution System to become the leading solution for large multi-site enterprises whilst retaining the useability and flexibility to allow any primary producing company to quickly reap the benefits of such a powerful system." - Ian Carson -Regional Distributer 

If you want to learn more – contact Ireland, Australia, 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 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 were awarded the contract for a beef primal processing pilot project in their Belfast plant in Christchurch.

 

What we 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. In 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.

 

 

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 switch-over, but the joint teams managed to complete switch-over in just four days.

 

 

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 have 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 the 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 their plan to roll out Emydex to their 13 other processing plants spread across New Zealand. In 2022, the plan in Phase 2 is to tackle Production Scheduling, Packing, Automatic Labelling along with 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 the existing Livestock processing system required to roll out to other bovine sites and then move onto 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 are 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 America offices

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Success in a Greenshell

Success in a Greenshell

Whakatōhea is an indigenous New Zealand iwi (confederation of Māori tribes) centred around the small coastal town of Ōpōtiki in the Eastern Bay of Plenty region of New Zealand.

Over 20 years ago, Whakatōhea created the aspiration to develop a Greenshell™ Mussel aquaculture farm off the coastline of Ōpōtiki. The vision was that the farming operation would support the development of a mussel processing factory in Opotiki and be the foundation of employment for their people, provide income for whanau (family), and support improved outcomes for the entire community.

Creating the world's first Open Ocean Greenshell™ Mussel Farm of such magnitude was no easy feat. The consent process took over 10 years of legislative change and resource consent approval, followed by a further 5 years of research and feasibility trials. When the venture needed capital to reach commercialization, the community came together – with both local Māori and Pakeha, businesses, families, and local trusts investing to enable the farming operation to further expand.

Today - with iwi support, national government contribution, and significant shareholder investment – the dream for Te Whakatōhea iwi and the local community is no longer just a dream; it is a living reality.

Te Whakatōhea Mussel Farm currently lies just over 8.5 km off the coastline of Ōpōtiki. The farm expands across over 3800 hectares of nutrient-rich, clear, and open ocean water space.

Mussels are harvested daily from the farm and delivered directly to the Ōpōtiki Processing Facility. From there, mussels are immediately processed, and freighted all over the world under the brand name Open Ocean.

Upon completion of the factory, the team at Whakatōhea Mussels realised that to provide a world-class product with traceability back to the farm, and even to the area of the farm where the mussels were harvested, no ordinary software package would do the job. After a worldwide search for a solution, Whakatōhea Mussels contacted Emydex. Emydex already had a fully functioning manufacturing execution system (MES) providing complete traceability in many seafood processing sites around the world.

Given the new processing facility was due to start processing in a few weeks, speed was of the essence. Within weeks the system was in place and ready to use. Being deployed in the Cloud meant no additional IT infrastructure was required at the plant with the existing touch screen terminals and scales easily integrated into the Emydex solution. Android-based barcode scanners connect seamlessly via the Internet to the MES database allowing for the issuing and dispatching of stock from the plant.

Mussels are bought into the plant in large hessian bags of up to a tonne where they are weighed and labelled which is recorded in the system with the harvest information resulting in a clear view of the quantity and origin of raw materials on the plant. From here the mussels are issued to a production grading ‘job’ where they are scanned using a traceability barcode into the job linking to the original harvest number thereby providing traceability back to the farm.

From here the mussels are recorded out of grading as a work in progress product again using a traceability barcode to track the mussels through the process. Finally, they are issued to the pack off process where they are recorded and labelled for shipment whilst still retaining the traceability from the farm to the finished items. The traceability is retained throughout the process by simply scanning the traceability barcode at each stage of the process.

Scott Fitzgerald, ICT Manager for Whakatōhea Mussels said of the implementation
‘The team at Emydex have done a great job, the documentation that was pulled together so quickly because our business needed a quick implementation was good, it is well detailed and easy to follow. Emydex provided training for the admins and super users, all of which has been useful.’

When asked after the go-live how he viewed the implementation Scott commented,
‘Very successful, being a greenfield site, we have been finding our way through the processes, not only with Emydex but as a business moving forward. Sometimes we knew what we wanted, other times we needed Emydex to be patient with us and help us to discover what we can and cannot do with the system. Emydex was great in helping us do this. Moving from the manual system to Emydex has already increased our productivity and will continue to do so.’

And finally, how was the process overall?
"In one word, great. Emydex has been easy to deal with and helped us to give our business the commercial push it needed regarding a production system.*"

 

If you want to learn more – contact Ireland, Australia, 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’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. 

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 towards 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

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Emydex CEO Update

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

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