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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

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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

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Emydex Beef Kill Line goes live in Euro Farm Foods.

Euro Farm Foods
Euro Farm Foods operate a beef slaughter plant at Cooksgrove, near Duleek in Co. Meath. The present business is unrecognisable from the small local abattoir taken over in 2001 by Michael & Agnes Fox. Continuous investment in infrastructure and personnel has helped the business establish and succeed in a demanding customer driven market.

With a view to further development of the business, in late 2010 Euro Farm Foods decided to upgrade from their previous factory software system to Emydex’s Kill line and Carcass Management system. After a period of design, installation and implementation, the go-live was complete in June 2011.

The Emydex lairage system in Euro Farm Foods links to both the AIMs and Bord Bia’s Quality Assurance systems in real-time, retrieving and verifying animal details, as well as farm quality assured status. Their upgraded kill line system includes an ear-tag sequencer, Grading/Weighing Stations, as well as Carcass Dispatch and Offal Packing terminals. Euro Farm Foods now also operate Emydex’s multi-currency Cattle payments system for animal settlements and cheque/remittance printing. The payments module also provides Euro Farm with the functionality to interface with their financial software package.

Commenting on the Emydex project, Ciaran Boyle, Financial Controller with Euro Farm Foods said; “Any decision to switch management information software is difficult due to a multitude of factors involved. After researching the factory software options which would best fit our business, we were impressed by the product and the people that are Emydex. It was reassuring to discuss our needs with people who knew and understood our business. This worked particularly well during the development of the cattle payments module. Difficulties encountered during the implementation process were not allowed become problems with agreed solutions delivered. Users have the benefits of improved accurate and reliable business reporting, stock controls, traceability and quality information. The support tools and staff also deserve a mention. Their assistance has been of particular help to our business.”

David McMahon, Emydex CEO added ‘as Euro Farm Foods are a single plant customers it was crucial Emydex provided Euro Farms with a cut-over to Emydex with as little disruption to production as possible. We initially implemented our Carcass dispatch module on an offal packing and carcass dispatch terminals, while interfacing back to their existing kill line system to extract and report on kill line activity. Once we were happy offal packing and carcass dispatch were all working fine, and the reports were correct we swapped out their existing kill line and payments systems with Emydex and switched over to Emydex entirely.
For more information on the Emydex system click here or contact Emydex on +353 1 8855990

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Emydex Lamb Kill Line system’s now live in Kepak plants

Emydex’s Lamb Kill Line system was implemented in Kepak’s Hacketstown Lamb slaughter plant in February 2011. Following on from a go-live of the same Lamb kill line system In Kepak Athleague in December 2010, this latest system go-live marks the completion of Emydex’s upgrade to all of Kepak’s kill lines in Ireland with six kill lines now running on Emydex, four of which are beef. This leaves only the Beef and Lamb kill lines in Kepak’s Wakefield plant in the UK due for completion in August 2011.

Similar to the Emydex Beef system, the Lamb kill line system allows for online real-time validation of a farmer’s status within Bord Bia’s Lamb Quality Assurance Scheme. This operates at Lamb lot level giving instant feedback as to whether Lamb farmers qualify for the Bord Bia quality assurance scheme or not.

The capacity also exists with the Emydex system for online integration to the Department of Agriculture’s AIMS system for notifying DAFF of animal movements to slaughter factory and kill. Kepak are using the AIMS system for reporting Beef movements in all of its beef kill plants.

Features of the Emydex Lamb kill line system include:

  • High Speed Lamb Processing
  • Automatic destination code assignment
  • Operator friendly running totals
  • Tally roll printing
  • Automatic switching to next lot when current log complete on Ear tag station (Sequencer)
  • Post grading lambs are assigned individual IDS by the system allowing for full traceability on entering boning hall and dispatch

Commenting on the recent Lamb Kill line systems going live, Jim O’Neill, Group IT Manager with the Kepak Group said “it became apparent that our existing Lamb kill line system had approached end of life and additionally any changes required for future advancements would be difficult to undertake. Accompany this with further enhancements at both the Lairage stage (AIM’s and Bord Bia checks) and floor based data collection terminals (QC based activity) as well as the fact we use Emydex now door-to-door it became an easy decision to make.”

O’Neill added “On ‘go-live’ everything went smoothly in both Athleague and Hacketstown and I personally could not ask for more on this. The added fact that data is now more accessible / structured for reporting as well as having the full support of Emydex who understand the meat business is a huge help for any future regulatory changes or internal customisation and it has proven an extremely successful rollout for Kepak on not just the lamb but also the beef implementations to date.”

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Kepak gets the Emydex Treatment

kepak-frozen-division-banner
Emydex technology was formed over six years ago with the aim of designing and developing data capture and production management software for the food industry based on open technologies. Emydex’s founders spotted a gap in the market place, as at that time the majority of available systems were unreliable, out-dated and tied to specific hardware suppliers.

Roll on six years and today Emydex software is in daily operational usage in over 30 plants owned by some of the largest single and multi-site food processors in Ireland and the UK, such as Dawn Meats, Dunbia the Kepak Group and O’Kane poultry.

Greater Control

Kepak’s journey with Emydex began in 2007. “Previous to Emydex, we had a number of separate in-house systems that weren’t integrated, so it was difficult to gain a true real time view of production. The Emydex platform gives us greater control of our production, better visibility of data, and a better understanding of the data that is critical to drive our business including Yields and Traceability,” says Jim O’Neill, group IT manager with the Kepak Group.

Today Emydex is running end to end in Kepak’s beef slaughter and processing plants in Clonee, Kilbeggan, Hacketstown, Athleague, Cork and Ballymahon. Emydex’s Lamb kill lines are scheduled to go live in Kepak’s Hacketstown and Athleague plants over the next few weeks. “We’re currently working on a project to complete our last Emydex project in Ireland, Cork Retail. We’ll also be looking at our Wakefield plant in the UK, and hope to have the implementation well advanced by year end,” says Jim O’Neill.

“What’s different about Emydex is you’re working with people who understand the demands of the food industry very well. Sometimes end users don’t always know what they want, Emydex have the ability to visualise an idea, without knowing the final solution, and see it through to completion” Industry knowledge coupled with a flexible approach to development allows for the delivery of solutions that adapt to suit customer business processes rather than the other way around. Jim O’Neill continues: “Our previous production management system was developed in-house. For Emydex to deliver a system to Kepak that offers the same level of flexibility, whilst at the same time being a totally reliable and robust solution, is testimony to how well Emydex software has been developed and deployed.”

Unique Feature

One of the unique features of the Emydex system is the Carcass management module. This incorporates a Carcass Splitting engine used to break down and track quarters, and maintain stock in terms of derived weights. “Carcass management gives customers the ability to maintain accurate carcass stocks from time of kill to through boning and dispatch,” Jim O’Neill points out.

Another big win for Kepak was the introduction of a Work Order control process that sits over the whole production process.“Production Work orders are generated in Emydex and issued to the floor so that operators can no longer process without an order on system – a big gain for us,” he explains. The notion of incorporating Work Order control to manage production is an optional feature of the system.

Warehouse Management

“Emydex’s Warehouse management system is the single biggest bonus to Kepak. We are a fast moving business with a high volume of stock movements. With Emydex we now have complete warehouse control and real time stocks down to scan level, without having to compromise on functionality,” adds O’Neill. This functionality includes real time validation at point of scanning an order, where the system warns operators of any discrepancies that arise during order picking, allowing them to take corrective action.

The Kepak group IT manager concludes: “The best way to sum up Kepak’s experience with Emydex is to say that Kepak have experienced operators and supervisors who are 20 years with the company, who with 15 minutes of training are not only competently using the Emydex system every day, but more importantly openly acknowledge how essential and valuable the Emydex system is in assisting them with their day to day tasks.”

Food and drink business
Food & Drink Business Europe, August/September 2010

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

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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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