Manufacturers who bottle beverages, can goods, process fruits and vegetables, or even bake desserts all have a lot of concerns that they have to consider throughout the supply chain process. These products are being consumed by the public and can have an effect on customer’s health. Further, there are a lot of guidelines that are handed down from the FDA or the FSIS. Using a food and beverage manufacturing ERP can help to quell a lot of concerns, from the safety of consumers to traceability and complying with regulations. We’re going to look into the top six concerns of food and beverage manufacturers.
1. Safety
There are so many different aspects to look at when it comes to the safety of food. Starting with allergens, there are about 6 to 8 percent of children and 2 percent of adults suffering from food allergies. These allergies could cause sickness or even death. Next, you need to worry about foreign objects in the food and beverage products. Although this can be a rare case, there have been instances of metal or glass shards that appear in manufactured food. Finally, expiration dates and any food that expires while still in the plant have to be discovered before it is shipped out. Using a food and beverage manufacturing ERP streamlines the process of tracking ingredients and expiration dates and allows you to narrow in on the production process to ensure everything shipped from the plant is safe for consumption.
2. Recalls
Timing is everything in the case of a recall. If your current processes are using paper and pen or spreadsheets, going back through your data to find which batch went wrong could take hours, maybe even days. If you need to recall an item, your consumers simply can’t wait that long. Food and beverage manufacturing ERP allows you to quickly find and isolate the ingredients which prompted the recall and keep them from entering the production phase. This saves you lost sales, legal repercussions, lost customers and a bad reputation.
3. Compliance
Food and beverage manufacturing is a highly regulated industry, which means complying with regulations is of the utmost importance. This process can be tricky if it is done manually, but by automating the process through a food and beverage manufacturing ERP you’re able to use time more effectively and the process becomes more accurate.
4. Cost Control
Outside of concerns for the consumer, cost is always a high priority on manufacturers lists. Using a food and beverage manufacturing ERP system gives you the ability to manage recipes and formulas, which improves operations and quality. In the long run, if your recipes are perfect every time, there is less waste and more cash flow. There are many other cost control features that are available in ERP that lead to lean manufacturing.
5. Labeling
In the interest of cost control, labeling is an extremely important facet to food and beverage manufacturing. The average cost of downtime due to mislabeling is $100,000 an hour. One major manufacturer even spent more than $300,000 in one year due to mislabeling fines. A food and beverage manufacturing ERP system can create these labels accurately for you with individualized bar codes, multiple label types, lot tracking and label sequencing.
6. Traceability
Since the enactment of the Food Safety Modernization Act, traceability is an ever important process in food and beverage manufacturing. Regulating bodies want to know where each food item comes, from the moment it leaves the farm or enters the country to the time it sits on the grocery store shelves. If you don’t know where each product could be traced through each step of the supply chain or each phase of production, you’re in for a long and costly audit. Food and beverage manufacturing ERP automates this process and allows traceability through the entire production and supply chain.
A lot of the concerns that food and beverage manufacturers have are important and are not unfounded. However, they could become less of a concern if the processes are automated. Using paper and spreadsheets leaves more room for error and creates less efficient processes. Food and beverage manufacturing ERP can quell a lot of concerns, allowing you to spend more time focusing on cutting costs and decision making.We put together a one stop shop to provide you with videos and resources to learn more about e2b teknologies Food Industry ERP. Click the button to learn more.
