Australian ready-made meals manufacturer nails recipe for success with Infor M3
Australian ready-made meals manufacturer nails recipe for success with Infor M3
This family-owned fresh food manufacturer has 35 years+ experience in innovative, value-added meal solutions. They invest in best available technology to deliver a consistent quality product to specification whilst harnessing local and global insights to deliver consumer-led product and process solutions. The Australian ready-made meals manufacturer runs three plants, two of which are located in Australia and the other in New Zealand.
Although the manufacturer was already running Infor M3 at their second production facility in New South Wales (Plant 2), and utilizing Infor M3 for its finance, supply chain and customer order processes at the first production facility in New South Wales (Plant 1), there were several integration issues. These integration issues meant that the manufacturer was unable to implement Infor M3 for its manufacturing processes, resulting in increased manual work, lack of visibility and production inefficiencies.
Following Fortude’s Infor M3 implementation for its manufacturing operations, the manufacturer’s three plants are now considered industry leaders in terms of manufacturing best practices in the Australian food production & distribution space.
Challenges
- Due to the lack of integration, there was a lot of manual work transferring data between systems.
- The process of stock valuation was impossible since the systems were not integrated. As the manufacturing processes were not integrated with Infor M3, the system did not show an accurate value of their stocks and there was poor visibility and lack of product traceability.
- As the manufacturer was not running Material Requirements Planning (MRP), they were not able to make the right inventory available for production at the right time with the lowest possible cost. This meant that they struggled with high material and labour costs and were not able to respond quickly enough to demand changes. This also put the manufacturer at the risk of production delays and inventory stockouts and shelf-life issues resulting in potential spoiled product.
- Manual purchasing processes which resulted in inefficiency, lengthy delivery lead times, and difficulty in accessing purchase order (PO) related data.
- Manual shop floor scheduling meant that the manufacturer struggled to track, optimize, run and report work in manufacturing operations. This lack of shop floor control meant that the manufacturers did not have real-time insights into labor, machine and material usage and was, therefore, unable to streamline its production processes.
- Manual management of ‘use-by’ dates in multiple systems meant that the manufacturer was unable to effectively track its products across the supply chain.
Solutions
- Implemented Infor M3 for the manufacturing operations at Plant 1.
- Rectified system integration issues that prevented both plants from making the most of their Infor M3 investments.
- Simplified processes such as stock valuation, eliminating the need for manual workarounds.
- Implemented integrations to third party factory systems using MEC and automated the integration between the factory floor systems and Infor M3 to automate the process.
- Configured a new warehouse for Plant 2 on Infor M3, and set up the auto distribution order (DO) process for stock transferring between the plants.
- Currently working on an electronic data interchange (EDI) integration for both plants and 7-Eleven stores.
- Rolled out Infor M3’s Maintenance Management module to help the manufacturer manage and maintain equipment for their shop floor across all sites & comply with statutory requirements.
Impact
- End-to-end supply chain and enterprise-wide visibility allow the manufacturer to better grasp stock valuation, respond quickly to disruptions, and boost production levels and operational efficiency.
- Real-time integration of MES with Infor M3 through Fortude enables tracking of products through manufacturing by order number, lot number, and dates, facilitating end-to-end traceability, batch control, regulatory reporting, and targeted recalls.
- Automation of manual purchasing processes has eliminated inefficiencies and minimized the risk of human error.
- Configuring additional warehouses in Infor M3 provides greater stock visibility through a single system.
- Automated management of ‘best-before/use-by’ dates and shop floor control in M3 has resulted in significant cost savings and improved efficiency.
- Infor M3’s Maintenance Management module helps manage shop floor equipment maintenance to maximize production uptime and minimize breakdowns.
- M3 minimizes equipment downtime by planning preventive and breakdown work orders and timely parts purchases.
- By tracking component failures and conducting failure analysis, M3 aids maintenance teams in minimizing downtime through planned preventive work schedules and resource/parts alignment.
- New digital capabilities have enabled the manufacturer to explore growth opportunities via e-commerce.
“Our investment in Infor M3 is a strategic move towards becoming the top convenient meals provider of choice for all Australians. Fortude’s food and beverage industry implementation experience coupled with its extensive suite of extensions and integrations has enabled us to boost the performance of Infor’s core solution. With Fortude’s support, we have been able to streamline our operations and minimize food waste through effective master demand forecasting and inventory management. We also have been able to establish complete traceability which enables us to ensure compliance and food safety in our operations. We are delighted to have a partner like Fortude that understands our industry and growth ambitions very well.”
Group IT Manager at the Australian ready-made meals manufacturer
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