Customers are constantly setting higher requirements regarding food safety. This means that production and distribution companies in the food & beverage sector must have full control over all incoming and outgoing goods. Quality controls are essential, just as checks on quantity. You can manage this process by assigning an inspection status to incoming and manufactured goods. And to enable this process to run efficiently and effectively you will need an IT system that supports and automates this process wherever possible.
SI Foodware
The Food and Beverage industry is characterised by specific requirements which can often not be catered for by a standard company-wide solution. For this reason Schouw Informatisering and Technology Management have combined their many years of knowledge and experience into SI Foodware®. In combination with Microsoft Dynamics® NAV, SI Foodware® forms a fully integrated standard company-wide ERP solution specifically for food and beverage companies.
SI Foodware is under continuous development and meets the latest industry requirements. This creates a specific solution, where costs remain manageable as the amount of customisation is reduced to a minimum. SI Foodware has been recognised by Microsoft with the highest quality label: 'Certified for Microsoft Dynamics'. SI Foodware consists of a number of integrated solutions, one of which is SI Foodware - Inspection Status. With this solution you can indicate the quality of a lot of goods by assigning an inspection status.
The Inspection Status Monitors the Process
The inspection status functionality enables you to monitor quality in the entire goods flow through your organisation. For example, when you post a purchase receipt or production output, you will always want to conduct a quality check. Once you have set this up, this inspection status will automatically be assigned to every new lot. As a consequence goods may be blocked for various outgoing transactions until further quality checks have been carried out, for example for sales orders or for use in production.
In SI Foodware - Inspection Status, you are free to define the moment when the lots are to be inspected before they can be used for various transactions. This also depends on how you have defined the quality control steps. You have considerable flexibility in defining which status is assigned to goods in an incoming transaction. You can define this inspection status for a number of attributes. For example per item, item category, all items, or for a specific item attribute. Furthermore, you can define an inspection status for an item from a specific supplier. So you see, you have complete control over what happens to your goods.
The inspection status not only has an impact on the logistics process, it also has an influence on the financial process. For example, when you want to post a purchase invoice, the inspection status of the lot concerned is checked. If the lot was rejected, you will not be able to post the purchase invoice.
Also for planning and ATP (Available To Promise) purposes, the inspection status is automatically taken into account. In the lot number information screen you have access to a number of inspection and quality functions. For example, you can split the lot into sub-lots. Additionally, you can display all changes made to a specific lot, assign a new inspection status, or directly create a return order. For your convenience, all these functions are available in one screen.
Random Samples
As in practice it is not possible to test all incoming goods, SI Foodware - Inspection Status allows you to conduct random samples as well as the standard checks. Based on supplier and item attributes, the system can suggest quality controls be performed on a random sample. For example: the goods from a particular supplier have to be checked every fifth receipt. If the result is negative, the next receipt must be checked as well. If, after 20 receipts (four checks), all checks were positive, the inspection frequency can be modified to one check per eight receipts.
Control on Quality
The lot is not released in the system for use in production, sales or other functions until inspection has been successfully completed. The inspection status is not just there to tag goods for inspection, it can also be used to block particular lots which are in quarantine, are damaged or need to be repacked. You can also assign a due date to an inspection status. So, for example, lots that are in quarantine can be released for use after a certain period. Additionally, a periodic quality control can be defined for a product.
If the periodic quality control function is set, a lot will automatically be blocked after a period of time, and will only be released again after quality control. The difference between the periodic quality control and the inspection status in combination with a due date is that the periodic quality control is repeated whereas the inspection status with due date is an event that occurs only once. This will give you structural control on quality management within your organisation. Besides all the 'hard attributes', you can also assign a 'soft attribute' to an item, in the form of a quality code.
Minimum Best Before Date at Sales
Your organisation probably guarantees a (customer specific) minimum shelf life (best before date (BBD)) for goods delivered to your customers. In this case it is essential that you have insight into the remaining shelf life of the products in stock. You will then want to block items whose BBD has expired for sales. You can do this quickly and correctly with SI Foodware – Inspection Status. All lots for which the BBD has passed are no longer available for sale. However, should the customer still want to purchase this lot, you can make the lot available again for this customer after which the lot can be sold. In addition, an available item can be blocked for a specific customer.
Overviews
SI Foodware – Inspection status consists of four main screens from which you can find the information relating to the inspection status you that you need on a daily basis. The first screen shows all lots and the corresponding inspection statuses. You can manage the whole process from this screen. There are two screens indicating the items per inspection status and one screen showing the availability per inspection status. Within these screens, you can set filters for item category, product group, item number, lot number and item attribute. The last screen is the detailed inventory overview. This screen shows the complete inventory. Here you can set filters for both quality and logistics attributes.