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How discrete is your lot tracking protocol?
Can you account for each and every ounce of each
ingredient received and every package of finished product shipped?
Can you track it by lot code, date received, vendor,
batch production, finished product and customer?
Do you take a broader approach?
Do you use ingredient receipt dates, production dates
and ship dates to provide a large umbrella to cover all possible uses of the
ingredients and product made during that time frame so you do not have keep
discrete data?
The latter approach has been commonly used for many
years. It works fine for
production facilities that have few vendors, few ingredients, few finished
products, few customers and fewer concerns for ever having to recall
anything.
It is more likely that your current system is somewhat
of a discrete protocol to meet your operational needs, and to meet your and
your customer’s recall requirements.
If you have an MRP, the newer versions allow entries
for lot codes for lot tracking. However,
the data must be entered. The
MRP doesn’t work without data entry.
This creates another source for errors.
“Garbage In, Garbage Out”.
Whether you have an MRP or not, there is a large amount
of data that must be collected from bills of lading for receiving to pick
lists for shipping. Lot codes
have to be entered for production to tie the ingredients to the finished
product. Ingredients must be
accounted for by weight or volume received, on-hand and used.
Finished product inventory must be accounted for at various stages of
storage until shipping and then its final disposition.
The paperwork to maintain the Chain of Custody can be
staggering and again be the source of errors of commission as well as
omission.
A FoodHorizon system can be configured to work from the
Vendor to the Customer to automate data collection so that the data is there
when it is needed.
Today we have the ability to tie together pieces of
information from many sources so we need to use that capability to make jobs
easier, input data more accurately and make conclusions and results more usable.
If you watch television, you may have noted a commercial by the
office supply company, Staples. They provide a difficult task for an employee to perform and
after the employee has a look of dismay, they hand him an “Easy Button”.
Let FoodHorizon hand you an “Easy Button”
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