Optimize Food & Agro Processes With Tailored Solutions From itelligence
Today’s Food & Agro businesses face a host of new challenges. Customers want to know exactly what they consume: where does it come from and who grows it? Is it grown, harvested and processed in a safe and environmental-friendly way? In a way that optimises the nutritional value? Suppliers want a flexible business partner, who can commit to a long term volume contract combined with short-term process cycles and who can help them leverage new technologies on smart farming and the Internet of Things. More stringent food safety regulations and fierce competition force Food & Agro companies to optimise their traceability and recipe management.
To overcome these challenges, Food & Agro companies need to bring all of their processes together in one platform – with tailored ERP solutions providing integrated planning and transparency across the supply chain.
Nortura
Nortura is one of Norway’s largest food manufacturers, and the leading brand supplier of meat, processed products and eggs to the Norwegian market.
Nortura is organized as a cooperative owned by more than 18,000 Norwegian farmers and has more than 30 production facilities all over the country.
itelligence has for a number of years supported Nortura with their implementation of SAP throughout the organization. The project started in 2015, with the first go-live in 2017. The plan is for the project to roll out SAP to more than 30 product facilities.
Current Hot Topics for Food & Agro Companies
Connected Food Supply Chain
The Internet of Things is transforming the way farmers, food manufacturers and distributors produce, process and sell food. It all starts at the field, where farmers optimize yield, reduce the usage of scarce natural resources and make the most efficient use of existing arable land by leveraging IoT technology. The use of GPS services, smart equipment, sensors, drones and satellites imagery collects and combines real-time data on crop growth, moisture level, soil characteristics, weather conditions and more.
Decision support systems translate these input data into agronomic advice. With this information the farmer can more precisely determine when to plant, when to irrigate and what crop protection to use. The “Food Supply Chain 4.0” continues with transportation companies, who have connected their cargo with sensors and apply predictive analytics: not only to track locations and provide their business partners with real-time delivery information, but also to monitor the freshness of the products by monitoring temperature and humidity level in their containers or trucks. Food & Agro manufacturing companies use the IoT not only to connect with their business partners achieving full supply chain transparency, improving food safety and reducing the probability and the impact of recalls. Manufacturers also streamline their own operations by connecting their machines and tools. Required maintenance can be signalled before a machine actually breaks down, which reduces downtime. Quality issues can be reduced by the use of sensors: eg. by signalling the door to a refrigerator room has been left open too long. Inventory and storage conditions can be optimized.
Last but not least, the consumer experience is transformed due to IoT. Fresh food boxes with recipes delivered at home; QR codes on a food product, allowing the consumer to get detailed product information; personalized coupons; personalized nutrition information; scan-and-go apps using smartphones. Also, grocers are experimenting with determination of food freshness by using video analytics and gas sensors; all in order to avoid spoilage and optimize consumer experience.
The Connected Food Supply Chain transforms the way of doing business for farmers, agro-food manufacturers, food transportation companies, CPG brands and consumers. itelligence solutions are designed to support you in this transformation. Our technology platform enables you to process data from any kind of machine, mobile device or sensor – merging it with transactional business data, geographical services or unstructured information from social media; then turning it into relevant business steering information.
Global Batch Traceability
Transparency across the Food supply chain is not only driven by regulation, but also by consumer demand. Consumers want to know exactly what they consume: who grows it, and from which country and region is the product? Is it grown, harvested and processed in a safe and environmental-friendly way? And in a way that optimises the nutritional value? Consumers also want clean labels: detailed specifications in comprehensive language, which indicate at a glance if the product is meeting their expectations (e.g. biological, gluten-free, halal or without preservatives). itelligence Food & Agro solutions are tailored to support all these demands. Our industry solutions are based upon the SAP S/4 HANA platform, enabling seamless integration with your business partners. Our Global Batch Traceability solution graphically displays all steps in the supply chain, from raw material to end product, on batch level. Source data is coming from our ERP solution but can also come from other sources like co-packers, suppliers or quality control agencies.
Matching Demand and Supply
Food & Agro companies have specific planning challenges that stem from working with fresh raw materials / livestock. Being it seeds, flowers, vegetables, dairy or meat: supply of raw material is always fluctuating. This can be due to seasonal patterns, changing growing- or harvest conditions or volatile market prices. In any case, long-term supply can only be planned on high-level (e.g. estimated volumes, period, quality) whilst detailed material specifications are not known until short-term, often only upon material receipt. Demand in Food & Agro is, on the other hand, getting more and more specific: both private label and retail customers are improving their labelling and quality requirements. Balancing make-to-order and make-to-stock is therefore a key requirement for success.
Food traceability
Smart technological solutions such as traceability software create insight, efficiency and safety in the food chain. Every movement of a product can be followed at any desired level: per crate, pallet or batch – and across all locations and warehouses.
It's Often the Little Things That Make the Difference
Nortura's digital core is shaped and enables an insight and transparency that with previous solutions was demanding, if not impossible. Large parts of Nortura are using the new technology, and the employees have adapted their routines and tasks in order to use the new system. Our employees’ and management’s ability and willingness to change in this demanding project is simply impressive, and probably one of the most important factors for Nortura being where we are today. We have a great cooperation with our partner itelligence. They understand our business, industry and needs, which is crucial to the success of our digital transformation
Erik Høeg, CFO and Project Owner in Nortura
Solutions for the Food & Agriculture Industry
Solution brief it.food
Optimize your process results and comply with international laws and regulations with our specialized solution it.food.
DownloadSolution brief it.agriculture
Optimize your agro processes with a flexible ERP solution made for the fresh produce industry.
DownloadStreamline Master Data Management with it.mds
Are you struggling with poor data quality and, as a result, with costly, error-prone processes and reporting? Then it is high time to find out about our self-developed solution it.mds.
it.mds provides full data transparency and simplifies your processes by managing, consolidating, and harmonizing all master data in one single central, integrated solution.
Our Food & Agriculture Specialties
Are You Facing Similar Challenges in the Food & Agriculture Industry?
- Are you struggling to meet traceability demands, both regulatory and from your customers and business partners, across the food chain?
- Is your outdated IT infrastructure leading to inefficient business processes?
- Are you struggling to get real-time insight into your process efficiency; to optimise your recipes, your co-products and by-products, your yield and your operating margins?
- Is it increasingly difficult for you to match supply and demand?
- Is your supply management influenced by fresh raw materials with seasonal harvest patterns, fluctuating quality characteristics and volatile prices?
- Are your demand predictions being complicated by short cycle times and tight restrictions on a/o Country of Origin, Biologic, Halal?
- Are you familiar with all the compliance issues and food safety risks caused by a growing global economy?
- Are you struggling with emballage management?
- Is a lack of system integration making it difficult to gain a clear and complete picture of your overall operations?
- Is data transparency and data analytics increasingly important for your company?
If you are currently facing one or more of these challenges, we can help you rethink your processes.
Industry Specific Processes for Food & Agriculture
Inventory and Supply Chain Management
- Manage inventory in multiple, concurrent units of measure where needed, and allow seamless processing in all units (e.g. pricing at the in-process scale)
- Manage all inventory formats, including customer-owned, customer-pegged (promised), made-to-order (private label), quarantined, pre-approved by quality, etc.
- Manage all traceability issues, lot track & trace, quality recall management, etc.
Sales and Operations Planning
- Evaluate all options for improving the business
- Explore product mix, customer mix, supply planning with ingredients and dry goods sourcing, supply chain costs, and optimization of cost options to maximize margins
- Collaborate across all roles and functions to build the best plan
Product Lifecycle Management
- Streamline PLM from product inception to disposal – and align the business’s product portfolio to its objectives
- Transition from R&D to production in a well-planned, thoroughly coordinated manner
Pricing, Promotions, and Commissions
- Manage complex customer pricing including deep top-to-bottom logic to accommodate complex contractual pricing component details
- Assign prices based on individual product characteristics
- Handle promotional pricing issues connected to the physical logistics planning cycles (inventory, transportation, etc.)
- Implement automated price optimization based on demand
- Compensate broker/distributor channels accurately, with links to the end customer where needed
Multichannel Sales
One system to handle:
- direct
- indirect via brokers/distributors
- B2B and B2C e-commerce and online stores
Analytics & Yield Management
- Align analytics with strategic needs throughout your business process
- Manage yield throughout the buying, production, storage, and logistics execution processes – focus this effort on critical control points rather than inefficient all-encompassing scope
- Increase visibility to key performance areas for business leadership, real-time, in-process (no closes needed)
- Streamline end-of-month and end-of-year processes for fast, accurate completion
- Leverage imbedded analytics for real-time feedback on critical issues, such as yield
Profitability Analysis
- Start with the right level of granularity to allow management of margin at the right level of detail for your business – most consumer products businesses need visibility at the customer and product level of detail
- Slice and dice your profitability analysis to see the effects of customer/revenue and product/cost mix, logistics execution, and other factors influencing profitability – use this information to improve the sales and operations planning process
itelligence: Experience Meets Innovation in Food & Agriculture
As a trusted long-standing partner of SAP, itelligence is part of the development process for industry-specific solutions from the outset. Combined with over 25 years’ experience in SAP implementations across multiple industry segments, this gives us unparalleled knowledge of the consumer products industry. It also puts us at the forefront of innovation in the sector, meaning that as we grow, you grow.
What’s more, thanks to our global presence, you can benefit from our best-in-class B2B and B2C solutions and round-the-clock consulting, wherever you are.
Farmbot in Action
How will we feed nearly 10 billion people in 2050 on this planet? How can we handle the growth of food demand short-term in the next years? How can we stop nature destruction and foster natural awareness for our future?
Imagination and new ways of thinking are needed to handle the global food challenges of the future. In this video you can watch a replay of the original pitch at the global NTT Data Hackathon 2017 to showcase the potential of a farmbot network to establish a platform for future Smart City Farming.
Reimagine Your Business and Learn How to Compete Successfully in the Digital Economy
Here you get to know what to do. Our expert, Don Mackenzie, gives useful advice about how to create consumer-driven buying experiences and how to maximize supply chain performance.
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