Pine River Cheese & Butter Co-operative installed:
- eQ Trace System from Verify Technologies
- Zebra Printer for lot code labeling of finished products
- Wireless handheld PDAs
- An interface with Accpac, their existing financial software
package
But while the co-op is proud of its heritage, it's not afraid
to experiment with new lines. It recently launched a number
of smoked cheeses, spreadable cold-pack cheeses and cheese
fudge, a decadent combination of havarti, icing sugar and
cocoa powder that is going over "like crazy," according
to General Manager Bill Rutledge.
"We're trying to find products that nobody else has,"
he explains. "We're very flexible about looking at further
or value-added products."
Now Pine River Cheese is applying that progressive attitude
to their plant operations, differentiating themselves from
their competitors by adopting a traceability system.
In 2007, the co-op signed up to participate in the Ontario
Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs' Traceability
pilot program. It's an initiative designed to help food growers
and processors track vital information at each stage of production
and distribution, empowering businesses with the ability to
conduct faster and more accurate product recalls when necessary.
Working with a consultant, the co-op installed eQ Trace -
traceability software developed with the food-processing sector
in mind - and began capturing lot numbers from the raw materials
that go into each batch of cheese.
Once the cheeses have been formed and cut, the blocks are
labeled and scanned into the system, linking each block to
the inputs used to produce it and giving staff instant access
to inventory figures.
When orders come in, employees on the sales desk enter them
into the system, where they can be downloaded onto handheld
PDAs (personal digital assistants) for order picking. As warehouse
workers fill each order, they scan the product bar codes,
automatically linking key data such as manufacturing date,
best before date and batch number to the customer.
Implementing the system required substantial amounts of staff
time to develop new processes, source and install equipment,
train employees, and get everything running smoothly. However
Rutledge anticipates a good return on investment when they
go live in early 2009.
One of the major benefits will be better inventory management.
There are approximately 515,000 kg of cheese in the warehouse
at any given time, and until now the co-op has relied mainly
on physical counts to know how much of each product was in
stock.
A traceability system changes all that. "I've got real-time
inventory at all times," says Rutledge. "Anybody
can check to see what's on the shelf if a customer calls,
to make sure we have product and we can fill the orders."
The co-op will also see greater business operational efficiencies.
Because the eQ Trace software integrates seamlessly with the
co-op's Accpac financial system, it makes invoicing faster
and also gives the co-op new sales reporting functionality.
Order picking will become quicker and more accurate as employees
simply scan barcodes on the cheeses electronically, rather
than recording product information by hand.
Most importantly, however, it speeds up and fine-tunes Pine
River Cheese's recall capabilities. In the past, if a problem
arose with a particular batch of cheese, employees had no
way to pinpoint precisely which customers were affected. Recalls
were a costly process in terms of staff time, lost product
and public image.
Now, thanks to the new software system, Rutledge can call
up a report listing all the customers that have actually received
the cheese in question. "You just click on the report
and it tells you exactly what customers got that particular
batch number," he explains.
That's a definite advantage both for Pine River Cheese and
the stores that carry it. "You're not calling customers
who don't have the product on the shelf and bothering them
- you're only calling the ones who you know did get the product,"
says Rutledge.
In an industry where public trust is paramount, Rutledge
believes Pine River Cheese's new traceability system will
make the co-op more attractive to retailers. "It gives
them a little more confidence in your products," he says.
Traceability brings benefits:
Figure 1: Bill Rutledge,
General Manager of Pine River Cheese & Butter Co-operative.
