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Emydex win Two Awards in One night

Emydex Deloitte & Fingal Business Excellence Awards

Deloitte Fast 50 Awards

Emydex picked up their first award at the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 awards, held in the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin last Saturday night.

Now in their 13th year, the Fast 50 awards rank the 50 fastest-growing technology companies in Ireland based on percentage revenue growth over a five-year period.

Coming in at 26th place on foot of cumulative revenue growth of 234%, David McMahon, Emydex CEO said “this represents an average growth rate of 30% year-on-year over the past 5 years. We’re happy with this level of performance and would be happy to sustain this level of growth for the next 5 years. It was great to be sitting at the same table with companies like Openet and Version 1, stalwarts of the Irish Technology Sector over the past 10 years.”

The reception afterwards was held in the Guinness Gravity bar over-looking the Dublin city skyline. One of the highlights on the evening was a key note speech given by Dr Chris Horn, co-founder of Iona Technologies.

Fingal Business Excellence Awards

Meanwhile across town at the Crowne Plaza Hotel Northwood, Emydex picked up their second award of the evening, winning the Smart Technology Excellence Award, sponsored by IBM, at Fingal Business Excellence Awards 2012.

Hosted by Marty Whelan the black-tie award ceremony was attended by over 400 people. Both Emydex parties joined up at the Crown Plaza later in the evening to celebrate the double award success well into the night.

Emydex 2012 Fingal Business Excellence Smart Technology Award 2012
Pictured at Fingal Business Excellence awards are L-R: Daniel Simonavicius (Emydex Technical Manager), John Carolan (IBM), Siobhan Moore (Chamber President), Lorna Daly (Emydex Customer Support Manager) and Marty Whelan (Broadcaster)

Emydex winner 2012 Smart Technology Award
At the Fingal Business Excellence Awards were from L-R: Susan Grennan, Marty Whelan (Broadcaster), Jayne McMahon, Lorna Daly

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Emydex Livestock Payment System

All three flavours of the Emydex multi-species livestock payments system are now live and running in abattoirs spread across Ireland and the UK.

Emydex’s Beef payments system is live in Liffey Meat’s plant in Ballinasloe, as well as Euro Farm Foods in Ireland. The Lamb payments system is live in Scotlamb (Vivers) in Scotland and the Emydex Pig payments system in Dawn Pork and Bacon in Ireland. Since being installed at these plants the system is being considered by a number of plants in the UK and Ireland, and even further afield in mainland Europe and Africa via our re-seller network.

Integration with other Emydex Kill Line Components

The payments system integrates with Emydex’s livestock booking component in order to ensure that any special prices applied at the time of booking are used for the payments. If no special prices are used then the system defaults to a base price per species/category.

When integrated to the payments system the booking component is able to retrieve the previous historical prices paid to a producer and the previous quality of animals received. This is for assistance when special prices need to be negotiated.

Whilst the main kill data is read from the Emydex carcass classification component, the payment system is in effect a stand-alone module, and whilst integration with other Emydex kill line components offers advantages, they are not compulsory. The Emydex payments system is capable of integration with any supplier’s kill line systems.

Settlement Schemes

The payment system itself is highly configurable. The method of calculating the amount to be paid for each carcass is called a ‘settlement schedule’. Whilst it would be simplest to administer if there was a single settlement schedule for all producers, this is often not possible. The system therefore allows any number of settlement schemes to be created and allocated against producers/agents.

Each settlement scheme can be made up of any number of elements. All schemes will start with a default base price/kg for each category of livestock being killed. In its simplest form this price is used to calculate the initial value of the carcass. Base prices can be over-written with prices agreed at time of booking, and/or at time of payment.

There are then a set of adjustment tables that are applied sequentially to the carcass to arrive at the final purchase price. Whilst these adjustments are normally always deductions, the Emydex system will allow bonuses to be paid for specific conditions.

Typical Adjustment tables would be:

Weight range table – with flat rate value paid above specific weights
Eurograde table – with adjustments based upon a grid of confirmation and fat class
Fault table – with adjustments based upon specific fault conditions
Quality table – with adjustments based upon the producers quality status

The Emydex system enables the user to set up as many adjustment tables as required using any parameter either captured in the system or recalled from the database.

The system has now calculated the individual value of each animal and the gross value of the lot. There are now a set of deductions that need to be applied to the gross value.

Again these deductions are created by the user. A specific set of deductions is defined for each settlement scheme.

Typical deductions (which can be specified as per kg or per head) include Haulage, Industry Levies, Veterinary Levies and Clipping Charges.

Pricing Screen:

Emydex Payments screen

Report Printing

Dependent upon the species/producer, there may be a requirement for the remittance advice note to show individual animals or grouped animals (e.g. by weight range or grade range). The system can be set to print either or both.

If the user requires it, the remittance advice note and cheque can be incorporated into the same document.

Reports are also available for any deductions specified.

Financial Integration

The Emydex payment system has the functionality to be operated in two modes.

Financial System Prints Cheques

In the first mode Emydex simply prints remittance advice notes and a list of all individual lot payments. This list is also available as a file for export into the user’s financial system for invoicing.

In the case of deductions, an invoice is normally received from the service provider, the Emydex deductions reports can be used to cross check the invoice amounts.

Emydex Prints Cheques

In this scenario the cheque is printed by the Emydex system (either attached to remittance advice note or on separate stationary). The Emydex system will also then print invoice lists with cheque numbers. This list is also available as a file for export into the user’s financial system.

Summary

The Emydex Livestock Payments System eliminates calculation errors by integrating the payment calculation system with the livestock classification system. It is a real time system that enables the payment calculation to be made as soon as a lot has been processed, significantly improving the efficiency of the payments office.

Historical data analysis enables processors detailed views of producer’s deliveries to the plant, such information can be shared with producers to the benefit of both parties.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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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