Careers Contact Downloads |

Food Processing Software Solutions

Uncategorized @nz

Home / Archives for Uncategorized @nz

Emydex shortlisted for Deloitte Fast 50 Technology Awards 2012

Deloitte 2012

Emydex Technology are delighted to have made the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 award shortlist for 2012. The Deloitte Fast 50, now in its thirteenth year in Ireland, is an awards program honouring business growth, technological innovation and entrepreneurial spirit. The program ranks the 50 fastest-growing technology companies in Ireland based on percentage revenue growth over a five-year period.

“We are very pleased to be included in the top 50 list for the first time. I attended the very first Deloitte Fast 50 award ceremony back in 2001 when working with another Irish Technology company, so it’s great to be back again this time with Emydex. I believe this award rubber-stamps our position as market leader in our chosen specialist field, and celebrates our success on the back of rapid growth and new customers won over the past 5 years. Given the current trajectory of the business, I am confident we will be attending for the next 5 years also.”

David McMahon, Emydex CEO

The announcement of company placements in the Technology Fast 50 awards will be made at a ceremony in the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin on November 16th.

On the same evening Emydex Technology is also shortlisted for the Smart Technology Excellence Award at Fingal Business Excellence Awards 2012. Hosted by Marty Whelan the award ceremony will take place at a Black-tie Gala Dinner in the Crown Plaza Dublin Northwood Hotel. Emydex are a previous winner of this award having won it in both 2011 and 2010.

Request a Demo

Oliver Carty testimonial video

Emydex case study with Oliver Carty, a Pork and Bacon producer based in Athlone, Ireland. The video describes how Oliver Carty use Emydex's Production Management software throughout their 2 further processing factories from door to door, covering Intake, Box packing, Order Picking (Scanning) and Dispatch.

The video also shows Oliver Carty’s use of Emydex’s back-office Client software to report on their Stocks, Yields and food Chain Traceability.

 

Oliver Carty Video

 

Emydex staff 2014
2014 Emydex Team

Highlight Comments on project

We wanted a model that worked completely from backdoor through to dispatch, a system that could give us data and ease of use was of key importance to us."
Justin Lennon, Key Account Manager, Oliver Carty

"We work on any hardware therefore we were able to
re-use their existing hardware which saved them
a lot of cost.

From our perspective, Oliver Carty is a very progressive and innovative food processing company. We recognise their willingness to invest in technologies solutions to give them accurate reporting on their metrics that drive their business. So I view the relationship as a partnership rather than a traditional customer supplier relationship."

Dave McMahon, CEO, Emydex

Request a Demo

Emydex Embrace RFID Technology

Emydex have been a long time user of bar coding technology as a means of maintaining traceability throughout their applications. Whilst we have been aware of, and trialled RFID technology for the past few years, it is only in the last 12 months that Emydex have really started to utilise RFID technology in real-life operational environments, enabling our customers to gain from the benefits of its application.

There are essentially two types of RFID tags, passive and active.

Passive Tags
Passive tags are generally lower cost and have a longer life cycle. They are encoded at manufacture with a unique ID number. This ID number can only be read from the tag when it is inserted into a radio frequency field generated by an RF reader. The efficiency of the reading is dependent upon the strength of the field and the time that the tag is in the field. This generally means that the tag has to be as close to the reader as possible at the time of reading.

Active Tags
Active tags have their own power source in the form of a battery. They are therefore more expensive and have a finite lifetime (battery life). For this reason active tags are best utilised in closed loop systems where the tags never leave the premises. Like the passive tags they are encoded with a unique ID number at the time of manufacture. In addition an active tag can be manufactured with varying amounts of read/write memory, enabling applications to write variable data to the tag for later retrieval direct at a reading point.

By means of the internal battery the tag can broadcast its data at the same time as the tag readers are creating the reading field. This leads to a greater tolerance on reading distance.

rfid_tags

Advantages
The greatest advantage of RFID tags over bar coded tags is that the tag can pass through the reading field in any orientation; this makes total automation, without the necessity for operator interaction a viable proposition.

Emydex have used both types of tags dependent upon the application. In the case of carcasses being transported on an overhead conveyor there is no need for active tags. The tags are encapsulated in a heat and impact resistant plug which is embedded in the carcass hooks. As the hooks are on a track system the readers can be positioned very close to the hooks. The tagged hooks recirculate within the system and never leave the site. By positioning data capture equipment close to the reading locations Emydex are able to 100% verify correct carcass data with no possibility of sequencing errors.

Examples of data that can be captured and recorded in the system relative to the hook tag ID are:

  • Ear Tag
  • Dentition Data
  • Tissue Samples
  • Veterinarian Data
  • Carcass Inspection Data
  • Classification Data
  • Weight Data
  • Chill Location

 

After the classification, bar-coded carcass tag labels are printed enabling forward traceability reporting of the carcass, after it has been removed from the original carcass hook.

By situating readers at strategic points on the track it is possible to identify exactly where each carcass (and carcasses in a lot) is located in the abattoir.

Another application for which we are using RFID is the destination control and product/operator traceability of plastic crates (and products within) in a processing department.

Each crate in the system is embedded with an active RFID tag. This tag has a unique ID number and an amount of memory for reading and writing data.

Operators place their output products into the crates. Via strategically placed read/writers and data capture equipment, the contents of the crates can be identified against individual operators and individual processes. The required destination of the crates can be written to the tag, enabling subsequent tag readers to automatically direct the crate through the conveyor control system until it reaches its next process or packing machine destination.

The Benefits
The benefits of automating such processes are a smoother product flow, greater operator efficiency (enabling better throughput and yield), less drip loss due to shorter overall processing times, better traceability. Not only can the system 100% trace the contents of every crate but it can also identify every product that has ever been in that crate, and everywhere that crate has ever been.

This experience has resulted in Emydex investigating alternative applications for RFID, particularly regarding the speed benefits of being able to read multiple tags at the same time and the efficiency benefits of effective automation.

Our initial investigations suggest that every company can benefit from using RFID in closed loop systems (where the tagged containers stay on the site or stay within the group), whether connected with fully automated solutions or not; the readability of RFID tags without the necessity of line of sight (as with bar codes) can have a significant impact on efficiency.

Request a Demo

Green Farm Foods live with Emydex

Since its foundation in 1991, Green Farm Foods have continuously expanded over the past two decades to meet growing demand for their food products. Today the company employs just over 100 people at a 4,000 sq. metre facility in Rathowen, Co. Westmeath in Ireland. Green Farm Foods specialise in the production of premium-cooked consumer foods for companies like Supervalu, Centra, Dunnes Stores, Tesco, Londis, Spar and Superquinn in Ireland.

Green Farm Foods growth plans included a requirement to utilise the latest technologies to allow for increased production capacity, higher standards and more innovative products. To help deliver this goal, Green Farm Foods contacted Emydex in April 2012 with a view to installing an Emydex Production Management system to capture, manage and report on production data across the plant from door to door.

Two project phases included replacing their AMPS warehousing intake and dispatch system in Phase 1 and later replacing their existing Scanvaegt Packing stations in Phase 2. The Emydex system is also integrated to their Pegasus Opera Financial System to synchronise master data files such as product, suppliers, customers, customer pricing and labelling, as well as to receive notification of all POs for pending goods to be received. Sales orders are currently keyed directly into the Emydex system.

“Similar to our other customers, Green Farm Foods had a few specific requirements we hadn’t previously built, that did not exist in our standard Packing and Processing module” said David McMahon, Emydex CEO. The Emydex Packing module incorporated two standard packing modules that include (1) box weighing and labelling followed by containerising/labelling at pallet level and (2) pack weighing and labelling followed by containerising at box level. Green Farm Foods had requirement for a 3rd variation of packing whereby it would be possible to pack multiple-products into a box, followed by box labelling. “Given the inherent flexibility of the Emydex system, we were able to code the changes for Green Farm Foods into their customer specific layer of business logic. Should other customers also look for similar functionality in the future, this feature may well end up as a standard feature of our Emydex Packing & Processing Module but this decision will very much depend on customer demand” added McMahon.

Another difference was that Emydex Dry Goods Intake functionality traditionally works over handheld scanners, whereas Bulk Intake took place over a fixed point terminal and scales. Green Farm Foods had a requirement to Intake both Dry and Bulk Goods on fixed point terminals, so again this was customised to suit their requirements exactly. “At this stage after 8 years of continuous product development, refinement and enhancement we pretty much have everything that any food processing customer could wish to look for, but if we don’t we can develop it quickly and easily given the flexible nature of the technology platform the Emydex system is built on”.

Commenting on the final phase of the project going live in August 2012, Robert Patton, Financial Controller with Green Farm Foods said “with Emydex we were able to replace our previous systems with minimal fuss and down-time, and with little requirement for operator retraining. Given Emydex is an open system we were able to reuse much of our existing hardware and were able to minimise the need to purchase any new hardware.”

“Green Farm Foods now have a fully functioning production management software system that covers all aspects of our production process within a single system. With Emydex we can create any number of warehouses and locations ourselves to track and control stock. We can Intake bulk, dry goods and packaging stock, we can build, break-down and rebuild pallets as required, we can scan stock from each and every stock location to any other location, we can issue To Production, issue From Production, Write-off and Dispatch stock. On the reporting side we now have the ability to run live Yield reports across various stages of our production process, in addition to the entire plant. Emydex were also able to implement their out-of-the-box stock reconciliation system without any fuss or difficulty”.

For more information on the Emydex system click here or contact Emydex on +353 1 8855990

Request a Demo

Emydex Customer Satisfaction Results

In order to improve the quality of our solutions and services Emydex send out a Customer Satisfaction Survey to all our customers every 6 months. The survey measures the satisfaction levels in the following areas:

Quality of Solution
Execution Timeliness
Meeting Expectations
Proactive Support
Lead Programmer
Recommendation
At least 2 representatives from each of our customers are invited to respond in order to get a broad picture of satisfaction levels. We always ensure we get at least 1 person to respond on behalf of each customer.

The feedback we receive enables us to pinpoint the areas where we need to improve and gives us the ability to define action plans to target specific areas. The Customer Satisfaction survey is sent out twice yearly, and so gives us the ability to monitor how effective our action plans are, and allows us to re-evaluate and redefine them where necessary.

A very positive result for Emydex staff and customers alike is that overall satisfaction levels rose by 5.02% compared to previous scores. Further to this for the question regarding recommendation we have moved from a score of 1 respondent giving us top marks in October 2011, to 1/3rd of all respondents responding with a 10 out of 10 in April 2012.

Survey Questions
Respondents were asked to rate their satisfaction based on the questions below:

Q1 Quality of Solution & Support (e.g. Usability, Speed, Performance, Bug Free etc.)
The quality of Emydex solution and support provided to you?

Q2. Execution Timeliness
The adherence to project deadlines and agreed project milestones during development and implementation?

Q3. Meeting expectations
How Emydex have lived up to your expectations that were set at the beginning of the project?

Q4. Proactive Support
How Emydex has lived up to their goal to provide proactive support to our customers?

Q5. Lead Programmer
The abilities and communication skills of the Lead Programmer on your project?

Q6. Recommendation
How likely are you to recommend Emydex to a colleague?

Request a Demo

Interfrigo Coldstore system enhanced with Food Allergen controls

Interfrigo Brand

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. The Interfrigo coldstore provides 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 fulfill 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 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

Request a Demo