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Foodex Expo 2010

Foodex

Emydex technology exhibited our software at the Foodex trade show which took place at the NEC Birmingham from 21-24 March 2010.

The Emydex stand was located in the Meatex hall where both James Grennan, Emydex CTO and Peter Kettell, Emydex UK Sales Manager offered demonstrations of the Emydex software platform operating on PCs, Industrial touch-screen terminals, scales, indicators and hand-held wireless scanners. The software suite on demonstration included Kill line and payments, carcass management, packing, warehouse & dispatch and quality management.

Emydex used Foodex 2010 as a platform to launch and showcase three new exciting additional modules to the platform’s software suite that are:

Quality Management System

A complete re-write of our existing QMS, the new QC system includes a workflow application, allowing users to build ad-hoc quality control surveys using a process builder. The workflow application then creates the specific QC surveys for QC inspectors to carry out a myriad of QC surveys throughout meat processing plants using hand-held wireless scanners

Recipe System

Applicable to meat processors with added-value operations, the recipe module will step-by-step, instruct food operators as to the ingredients, weights and cooking instructions required to create finished goods. The system will also verify actual weights measured in real-time to ensure the correct weights have been applied, and allows for full traceability of all constituent parts of the finished product.

Web-based (Thin) Client

In line with Emydex’s company mission that is to be at the fore-front of leading edge technology, Emydex will demonstrate a new web-based thin client built using Microsoft’s new Silverlight development platform for the web. This thin client version of the DMS will give our customers internal and external access to iWMAS via a web browser without the need for software installs which is ideally suited for remote reporting and data transfer.

Emydex at Foodex

Emydex Software on display at Foodex

Visitors to the Emydex stand at Foodex 2010 / Emydex software running on a range of hardware independent devices at the Foodex show.

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Dunbia (Preston) complete end-to-end Emydex roll-out in 8 weeks

The Dunbia Group, headquartered in Dungannon, Northern Ireland, recently completed installation of an entire Emydex iWAMS solution at their Retail plant in Preston, England. Dunbia (Preston) is a modern processing facility comprising a beef and lamb abattoir and de-boning facility, and a separate retail packing operation.

The facility has the capacity to process up to 1,500 cattle, 10,000 lambs and 600 tonnes of retail packed product per week. Dunbia originally installed the iWAMS Warehouse Management System module in their Preston plant two and a half years ago in September 2007.

This recent upgrade project covered the entire facility end-to-end from stock intake, to production, packing, yields & costings, warehousing and dispatch, and incorporated Sales Order and Purchase order processing.

“This latest project took just eight weeks to complete from start to finish”, said Jay Adams, IT Service Delivery Manager in Dunbia (Preston).

“The project ran relatively smoothly when you consider the facility never had a transactional system running before, meaning we had to train all our staff over the two months before the system went live. Emydex also provided two weeks on-site support post go-live, which was a great reassurance in case anything went wrong, which it didn’t.”

“In terms of benefits, the system gave Dunbia (Preston) immediate control over systems and reporting. Using the Emydex Data Management System, back office staff had instantaneous access to far more accurate reporting of efficiencies, yields and giveaways and operator performance” Said Adams.

The Emydex software system roll-out coincided with a parallel roll-out of new plant hardware including Marel Terminals, and Avery Scales. This included integration to high-value processing lines incorporating fully automated weighing and box level labelling.

“Emydex’s ‘open architecture’ means it can integrate with any third party hardware, and as all the integration protocols had been written before, integrating was a breeze. Hardware independence is one of Emydex’s key selling points”, said Adams. “We’re not tied down to a narrow choice of hardware; we can pick and choose the hardware configuration that best suits our requirements”.

Another key selling point with Emydex is the flexibility offered within the software itself.

“We rolled out the standard flavour of the iWAMS Retail Solution initially, but over time we have made changes to the system in order to suit the specific ways we work in Dunbia (Preston), and the individual demands of our customers. Its fine to talk about “group standards”, but at the end of the day every facility will have differing requirements whether it’s down to the physical layout of the plant that doesn’t facilitate a ‘standard’ transaction flow, or down to the individual reporting requirements of a MD. So too, every customer or supermarket chain will have different requirements, so your systems have to have the ability to adapt to deliver these changes easily and quickly. That’s what we have now with Emydex.”

About Dunbia

Dunbia is one of Europe’s leading suppliers of beef and lamb products for the national and international retail, commercial and foodservice markets. Formerly known as Dungannon Meats, the group is headquartered in Granville, near Dungannon, Northern Ireland. Dunbia operates from ten sites in Northern Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland.. Out of the total workforce of nearly 3000, some 800 are employed in Northern Ireland. Dunbia supply international markets and UK supermarket chains, including Sainsbury’s, Asda, Iceland and The Co-operative. The firm also includes the former Rose County Foods site in Sawley, Lancashire, and the former Oriel Jones and Son facility in Llanybydder, Wales.
For more information on the Emydex kill line system click here or contact Emydex on +353 1 8855990

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Dawn Pork & Bacon Weigh Bridge system goes live

Dawn Pork & Bacon

Dawn Pork & Bacon, Waterford, Ireland recently upgraded to the latest version of the Emydex iWAMS platform, version 3.2, giving Dawn P&B enhanced functionality around dynamic reporting and data grids, in addition to much improved system processing speeds. A new automatic scanning system introduced allows boxes to be scanned into stock automatically improving productivity at the plant.

As part of the upgrade Dawn also switched over from use of their existing Sales Order processing system to the Emydex SO system, and now have much greater visibility of their Yields through delivery of a full set of Yield reports specifically customised for Dawn Pork & Bacon’s requirements. In tandem with this upgrade, Emydex also developed a new Weighbridge system for Dawn to manage truck deliveries to the site. Using the new Weighbridge system Dawn can verify dispatch weights against weights at the bridge, eliminating potentially costly mistakes.

Commenting on the upgrade project, Alan Doocey, IT project manager with Dawn Pork & Bacon said

“we’re now a long way from where we were a few years ago when we were running on a previous system that was outdated, expensive to run and not receptive to making changes to suit our changing business. We chose to replace Multiflex with the Emydex system for its ease of use, flexibility to make system changes, and integrate with any type of hardware or third party systems. I’m extremely pleased we made that decision”.
For more information on the Emydex kill line system click here or contact Emydex on +353 1 8855990

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Dawn’s Highland Meats plant in Scotland goes live

Dawn Meats Brand
Following the successful roll-out of the Emydex software platform to Dawn Meat’s processing plants in Grannagh, Rathdowney and Charleville In Ireland, Emydex went live in Dawn’s Highland Meats plant in Scotland last week. Highland Meats are a major supplier of prime Scottish beef to the marketplace and operate a state-of-the-art abattoir and deboning facility purpose built in 1995.

Commenting on the launch Martin Curran, Group Factory Systems Manager with Dawn Meats said “it’s a credit to the joint Emydex/Dawn team that we are now in a position where with adequate planning, Emydex module roll-outs out can be completed within a short space of time without any interruption to production. As Emydex is hardware independent we were able to use existing indicators and printers thus saving on cost. New touchscreen PC’s of our choice were installed to run the Emydex Factory Floor applications

James Grennan, Emydex CTO. “The software roll-out took place in tandem with a complete re-vamp of hardware.” This first phase of the Highlands implementation focussed on the roll-out of the Emydex Carcass Management module with full integration to Highland’s existing Kill line system. Emydex Carcass management includes carcass modelling which allows for multiple splitting and de-boning scenarios, full stock management, carcass rebuilding, traceability, and carcass pricing.

Shane Slattery, IT Director with Dawn Meats Group said “Emydex is a central pillar of our strategic I.T. 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 see 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”.
For more information on the Emydex kill line system click here or contact Emydex on +353 1 8855990

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Kepak Beef Kill-line goes live

Kepak

Kepak Group went live with Emydex Technology’s Beef Kill Line software system at their Beef processing plant in Clonee this morning. After successfully running the Emydex kill line module in a test environment in Clonee for two weeks, the system was switched on and tested in ‘live’ mode over the weekend ready for Monday morning Beef processing.

“The Kepak and Emydex team worked very hard over the weekend to ensure everything went smoothly. Despite one or two small glitches, everything has gone exceptionally well this morning. Proof that a proper approach to testing does work” said Robbie Grogan, Finance Director, Kepak Group.

Beginning with Lairage, Kepak can now book animals onto the Emydex system, creating animal ‘lots’ with real time linkages to both the Irish Department of Agriculture’s AIM system (Animal Identification and Movement), as well as the Beef Quality Assurance system.

From Lairage the Animals then enter Kepak’s Line Sequencer where carcass numbers are issued, and brain sampling data is captured. The system then links to the Grading station where animal weight and grading information is collected.

“One of the best features of the Emydex kill line system, is that we now have automatic destination codes. We didn’t have that option before” said Tom Mulligan, Group Business Systems Manager with Kepak.

James Grennan, Technical Director with Emydex Technology said “ the kill line going live completes the full picture, as the Emydex platform now supports Kepak’s beef processing truly from end-to-end. From the reception of animals in Lairage, through to Carcass management, In-boning, Warehousing and Dispatch. The work doesn’t stop here however, as we next move on to roll-out our Lamb kill line system for Kepak’s lamb processing factory in Athleague”.

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