10 customers - JustFoodERP

WHY USE
TO RUN YOUR FOOD COMPANY
10 CUSTOMERS
SHARE THEIR EXPERIENCES
Our customers are the companies that are growing in a
hurry, the food companies that want to be the innovators
at meeting safety compliance and government regulation.
They are the group of people thinking not just about how to
run their current business better, but how technology can
help them grow their business in the future.
In 2004, when we created JustFoodERP, we were fortunate
to win over some very forward thinking customers. Our
customers are a huge component in what has made us
successful. Sure we have some very savvy minds in our
research and development department, a solid support
organization, and we have the most skilled implementers
in the industry, but it is our customers’ influence and
support that has brought us where we are today. We have
more than 100 food facilities using our software. We rank
in the top 1% of Microsoft partners globally, and we have a
product roadmap that is unmatched in the industry.
The following are just a few of our customers’ stories using
JustFoodERP.
David Pilz, CEO
AINSWORTH PET NUTRITION
CUSTOMER PROFILE
Our warehouse workers
using JF Floor on their
handheld devices has
improved inventory
accuracy, visibility into
inventory status, and
management of quality
holds in the system.
Jamie Hornstein,
Director, Information Services
Ainsworth Pet Nutrition
Ainsworth Pet Nutrition, based in Meadville, PA,
has been manufacturing and distributing pet food
across the U.S. and Canada. America’s oldest
privately owned pet food company, founded in
1933, has been run by the Lang family for five
generations, including the current CEO, Sean Lang.
Ainsworth sells pet food to virtually every major
retailer in the CPG market, including the brands
Back to Basics, Enhance, VF Complete, The Source,
Rachel Ray Nutrish™, DAD’s Pet Foods, the Better
Than® treat brands, and Kibble™ Select Complete.
Ainsworth also manufactures private label
products (in-store brands), and they do some
copacking for other pet food companies through
the Ainsworth Custom Division.
Ainsworth employs more than 500 employees
altogether at its head office, manufacturing facility
and warehouses in Meadville, PA, a sales and
marketing office in Sewickley, PA, and another
manufacturing facility, more warehouses and
an office in Dumas, Arkansas – the latter location
since Ainsworth acquired Arkat Animal Nutrition in
2010. All manufacturing is done in the U.S., and the
bulk of ingredients are sourced from local
suppliers.
THE CHALLENGE
When market demand for their pet food doubled
between 2000 and 2007, Ainsworth decided to
purchase an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
system to help them manage growth. They
selected JustFoodERP and Microsoft Dynamics,
largely because of the food industry-specific
functionality built by JustFoodERP on top of the
Microsoft platform. Ainsworth’s initial
implementation in 2007 included Finance, Sales,
Demand Planning, Purchasing, Inventory,
Manufacturing, Logistics Planning, and Quality
Management. At the end of Phase 1, there were
30 licensed users of JustFoodERP at Ainsworth.
In 2012, that number sits around 50, with 100
employees trained in the JustFoodERP system,
says Jamie Hornstein, Director, Information
Services, Ainsworth.
Advance Ship Notice (ASN) can be
complicated but necessary if you are
doing a lot of case picking. The other day
I looked at a large retailer’s order – where
we used to sell them three or four items,
we now have 30 items on the order... A lot
of ASN comes down to training; we had a
hand in customizing the ASN module
in JustFoodERP.
Jamie Hornstein,
Director, Information Services
Ainsworth Pet Nutrition
1
AINSWORTH PET NUTRITION
THE SOLUTION
Ainsworth has continued to add functionality
to the system in the years since, says
Hornstein. For example, in 2011 they
implemented the Warehouse Management
System (WMS) part of JustFoodERP at all
their warehouses. While Ainsworth has
always had 24/7 manufacturing and
warehousing operations, the introducing of
the WMS module put that around-the-clock
functionality in place in their business
software systems for the first time.
They also implemented JF Floor – the mobile
web interface that lets employees access the
JustFoodERP system via handheld guns to
scan barcodes for production output and
movements at their warehouses. JF Floor is
being used by about 20 workers at three
warehouses in Meadville, and another three
in Dumas and other locations. “Our
warehouse tracking systems were
antiquated,” says Hornstein. “We were
happy to see the lower cost user licenses for
JF Floor” – substantially lower than the cost
of the regular Microsoft Dynamics license.
Ainsworth also implemented the Advance
Ship Notification (ASN) module within
JustFoodERP in 2010.
THE BENEFITS
About 10% of their retail customers
mandate them to use ASN – a standard
of documentation and labeling required
by some mass merchandisers for how
they want product to arrive on their
shipping docks. “It can be complicated,
and necessary, if you are doing a lot of
case picking,” says Hornstein. “The
other day I looked at a large retailer’s
order – where we used to sell them
three or four items, we now have 30
items on the order!” He continues: “If
you are using ASN, you have to re-think
the layout of your warehouse, you have
to stage everything. A lot of ASN comes
down to training; we had a hand in
customizing the ASN module in
JustFoodERP.” EDI, which is much more
prevalent than the adoption of ASN at
this time, is required by about 80% of
Ainsworth’s customers, says Hornstein.
They use the Lanham EDI module within
the JustFoodERP system.
Taking advantage of built-in ASN and EDI lets
Ainsworth conduct more, and better, business with
mass merchandisers. When it comes to the addition
of JustFoodERP Floor, Hornstein says putting
that wireless interface in the hands of their
warehouse workers has resulted in “improved
inventory accuracy, visibility into inventory status,
and management of quality holds in the system.”
The addition of WMS has been invaluable as the
number of Ainsworth warehouses multiply at
various spots around the U.S. – with more likely to
come in the near future. In fact, says Horstein,
since Ainsworth purchased the Dumas, AR facility,
they’ve had plans to expand to other parts of
the U.S. “and we realized our demand planning
systems through MRP were not integrated.” As a
result, working with a supply chain consultant,
Ainsworth has recently developed a “phased-in plan
to integrate forecast and production planning
systems, and do some cost-based optimization of
where to manufacture products,” says the
consultant, Sumantra Sengupta, Managing Director,
EVM Partners, LLC. “Our supply chain optimization
project uses JustFoodERP modules, open integration
and data, including POS data feeds directly from
Ainsworth’s customers.” The MRP and MPS modules
of JustFoodERP are being customized to suit
Ainsworth’s needs, and sales forecasts are loaded
into the ERP system for two-way integration with
third-party forecasting software.
2
AINSWORTH PET NUTRITION
THE FUTURE
Ainsworth plans to further automate lot
traceability and recall functionalities within
the JustFoodERP system; employees there
have historically used manual processes to
check production records to confirm raw
material and finished product specifications,
Hornstein says. With JustFoodERP, they can
go to a single button and hit ‘trace’ and
they’re done. Food safety is a top priority at
Ainsworth; in fact, they are the first pet food
manufacturing company in the U.S. to receive
a Facilities Food Safety audit rating of
“Excellent” from the Safe Quality Foods (SQF)
Level II International auditing standard, in
accordance with the Global Food Safety
Initiative (GFSI). The Ainsworth Pet Nutrition
Triple Check System, which includes internal
audits and batch analysis and external
testing by third-party laboratories, is how the
company has stayed off public lists of
product recalls, says Hornstein
The company also plans to roll out the Container functionality within JF Floor; that will
allow them to automate the processes of
building, moving, picking, and consuming
containers (defined as a pallet, case, bin,
shipping container or any other combination
of lots and UOMs). And Ainsworth intends to
expand the use of the Quality Management
module within JustFoodERP to “more tightly
integrate our quality management of products and traceability within the system,” says
Hornstein.
Heading into its sixth year working with JustFoodERP, Ainsworth Pet
Nutrition is dedicated to continuous improvement of its multi-site
system to reach its business goals of being the leader in pet food
manufacturing and distribution in the United States.
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3
ALMONDINA
® BRAND
COOKIES
ALMONDINA
® BRAND
COOKIES
The JustFoodERP team has
been amazing… even with
the executives at
JustFoodERP, I feel like I
know them really well. It’s
been a seamless process;
even when one of our main
contacts is out of town, we
get a response right away
from JustFoodERP.
Tamar Markham,
VP Finance/Treasurer
Almondina® Brand Cookies
CUSTOMER PROFILE
The commercial bakery of Almondina® Brand
Cookies, produced by YZ Enterprises, Inc.,
makes toasted almond biscuits that are all-natural, non-dairy, Kosher and Parve, with no
added fat or salt, no cholesterol or preservatives, carried by major retailers such as Trader
Joes, Whole Foods, Costco and Walmart – to
name a few. They employ about 35 people at
their office, warehouse and bakery in Maumee,
Ohio where they make more than 180,000
cookies per shift. Founder and CEO, Yuval
Zaliouk grew up loving his grandmother Dina’s
cookies; in 1989, he launched Almondina®
Brand Cookies, named after Dina, in his kitchen and within seven years, the biscuits – now
available in a dozen flavor variations – are sold
in 50 states and seven foreign countries. The
family owned and operated company includes
Zaliouk’s wife, Susan Zaliouk, as Vice President, their daughter, Tamar Markham as VP of
Finance/Treasurer and son-in-law, Jason
Markham as VP of Sales and Marketing.
THE CHALLENGE
The company used to run their operations on a
Microsoft Great Plains system, but they switched
to JustFoodERP because they wanted an
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system built
specifically for the food industry, to meet more of
their requirements than just accounting, says
Tamar Markham, VP Finance/ Treasurer. “Our
shortcomings were on the manufacturing side.
We had to address this since we are a growing
food manufacturing company – and we had to do it
quickly.” As part of the Global Food Safety Initiative
(GFSI), a thirdparty GMP food safety and quality
audit was booked, and Costco was waiting for
audit results to decide if they would do
business with Almondina®. “Overall, we noticed
the trend towards food safety and quality
certification in the industry, and we wanted to get
ahead of that curve,” says Markham.
To meet these demands, the company fast-tracked
their ERP selection process, first looking at SysPro
since that software system is used by their off-site
chocolatier. “But after reviewing JustFoodERP, we
saw that it was more user-friendly and scalable,”
says Markham. “We like the Microsoft platform of
JustFoodERP because of the layout; it’s familiar to
our employees since we had been working on
Great Plains.”
4
ALMONDINA
® BRAND
COOKIES
ALMONDINA
® BRAND
COOKIES
THE CHALLENGE
Aside from their impending third-party
audit, other factors complicated and
accelerated the bakery’s need for the right
ERP system. Their multi-step baking process,
which happens over a period of days, is
unique to the industry. As well, “growth at
Almondina is pretty intense,” notes
Markham. “We’ve almost maximized our
seven day/week shift so we are moving in
the direction of needing to introduce a
second shift in the bakery.” The company
has also just launched a new product line
called Almondina® Toastees™ – mini toasts
available in resealable packages in 5.25 oz.
pouches for retail and 17.5 oz. pouches for
bulk retailers. The new ERP system had to
be in place and working well, notes
Markham, since “my husband [Jason
Markham, VP of Sales and Marketing] and
I are featured on the Almondina® Toastee™
packaging! In 2014, we’ll be busy promoting
the product across the country.”
“We noticed the trend towards food safety
and quality certification in the industry,
and we wanted to get ahead of that
curve… Traceability and recall functionality
within JustFoodERP helped us gain our
GMP certification – and win Costco as a
customer!”
Tamar Markham, VP Finance/Treasurer
Almondina® Brand Cookies
THE SOLUTION
At the start of the project, the
JustFoodERP team visited the Maumee,
OH bakery to “watch what we do,”
says Markham. “Our COO sat down
with JustFoodERP’s business analyst
and project manager” to map out the
baking design to the ERP system.
YZ Enterprises, Inc. went live with
JustFoodERP in July 2013. A couple of
months before that, Markham attended
JustFoodERP Customer Connect, the
annual user event held in Vegas. “I got
a lot out of the event, learned even
more about JustFoodERP from industry
peers and from all the JustFoodERP
product experts.”
Markham says the working relationship
with JustFoodERP as a partner, both
during and since implementation, has
been “unbelievably good… the
business analysts and technical support
people are amazing. Even with the
executives at JustFoodERP, I feel like I
know them really well,” says Markham.
“It’s been a seamless process; even
when one of our main contacts is out of
town, we get a response right away
from JustFoodERP.”
THE BENEFITS
The company got successful accreditation for
food safety and quality from a leading
third-party auditor – a result Almondina staff
attributes in large part to the superlative lot
traceability and recall functionality within JustFoodERP. “We finished our traceability and mock
recall requirements with JustFoodERP in just 30
minutes,” notes Markham. “It used to take us
days!” As for that very large customer waiting in
the wings for the audit to pass – they won
Costco’s business, fueling Almondina’s growth
even further. In the few months since
implementation, the company is reaping many
other benefits of their JustFoodERP system.
“We like the routing functionality, its flexibility
regarding WIPs and finished goods,” notes
Markham, and “With lot tracking within
JustFoodERP, we’ve cut down an insane amount
of warehouse hours… now we know what’s
happened to all the finished goods all the time.”
She continues: “The costing component is
amazing, the fact that I can go to my item card
and know that costing is accurate for each SKU!
And we’re madly in love with the sales invoice
profitability report we get from our JustFoodERP
system. We look at it like crazy to see which
customers we’re making money on and which
ones we’re not.”
5
ALMONDINA
® BRAND
COOKIES
ALMONDINA
® BRAND
COOKIES
THE FUTURE
“We’re looking forward to
using more of the
production planning and
scheduling functionality
in JustFoodERP,” says
Markham. They also intend
to roll out the mobile
warehouse management
functionality, called JF Floor,
in the next year, and “We
want to learn more about
how to extract information
out of the system, with
reporting.”
6
BAKER
BAKER BOY
BOY
\Our newly independent operations needed
a business system to manage
all aspects of the business. We
had the option to use the
incumbent system implemented
at the former company, Specialty Foods Group. However,
we decided that our new business needed a system that
provided easier access to information and placed less
demands on infrastructure
to support and maintain. We
knew that JustFoodERP and
Microsoft Dynamics was the
right sized option. Jehan B.
Saulnier, President & CEO
Liguria Foods, Inc. Processors
of pepperoni and other Italian
meats.
Jehan B. Saulnier, President & CEO
Liguria Foods, Inc. Processors of
pepperoni and other Italian meats
CUSTOMER PROFILE
THE CHALLENGE
Based in Dickinson, North Dakota, Baker Boy
manufactures more than 400 varieties of
frozen, par-baked, and baked products. Celebrating more than 50 years of baking excellence, it’s known as one of the most prominent
bakeries in the Upper Midwest and Northwest
regions of the United States.
The legacy system that Baker Boy was using,
Food 6000, was migrating to Process 800.
The management team decided if they were
going to go through the effort of migrating a
system, then they should do a full system
search and find out what system best met
their business needs.
Product selection includes an assortment of
breads, buns, specialty breads and buns,
donuts, muffins, cakes, cookies, sweet rolls,
pastries, croissants, biscuits, subs and hoagies,
garlic toast, fry bread dough, pretzels, pizza
dough, toppings, and seasonal items.
Jason Yoder, IT Manager of Baker Boy, points
out, “The goal was improved efficiency
throughout the entire supply chain meaning
from receiving, to lot tracking, to receivables.”
Baker Boy is a service-oriented company dedicated to its customers and
is absolutely resolved in meeting its customers’ expectations. Meeting this
requirement while pursuing company growth in the process meant that it
was time to look at a software and service solution that could help with
their business efficiency.
7
BAKER
BAKER BOY
BOY
THE SOLUTIONS
“Preparing ourselves for growth in the future, we
knew we had to have better systems in place. This
software investment in JustFoodERP was a
foundational building block,” states Yoder.
Baker Boy had some special manufacturing needs
as they are assembly-based instead of recipe-based.
Their evaluation team consisted of six people across
business departments, as they were looking to
integrate all of their business systems.
THE BENEFITS
Baker Boy has been live since 2008 and
is working on production items like
weigh scale integration and working
towards overall best practice across the
entire process.
THE FUTURE
Baker Boy has been live since 2008 and
is working on production items like
weigh scale integration and working
towards overall best practice across the
entire process.
“We definitely look at JustFoodERP as a partner, not just a software
vendor. We find them responsive and helpful. We feel they want us to
grow just as much as we want to grow.”
Jason Yoder, IT Manager Baker Boy
“We are really putting a conscious
focus on doing things properly and
using the system as much as we
can. Running a lot trace is much
quicker than it was – but we
are still ramping up and want to
get faster using all the functionality
of the software.”
Jason Yoder, IT Manager
Baker Boy
8
BRUCE
FOODS
BRUCE
FOODS CORPORATION
CORPORATION
ALMONDINA
® BRAND COOKIES
“I would recommend
JustFoodERP to other food
companies… the people at
JustFoodERP are really
dedicated to solving issues,
there is no red tape, and
we get a hold of senior
management at
JustFoodERP if we need
to.”
Keith Kern, IT Director
Bruce Foods Corporation
CUSTOMER PROFILE
Bruce Foods Corporation, based in New Iberia,
Louisiana, has been bringing spice to life since
1928 with their lines of Cajun, Tex-Mex and
Southern vegetables food products. One of
America’s largest privately-owned food manufacturers, Bruce Foods was a pioneer in popularizing
spicy cuisine in the U.S. and introducing canned
Mexican foods – the latter from their El Paso, TX
plant. Altogether Bruce Foods has four
processing plants across the U.S. where they
make 250+ products under nine brands –
including The Original Louisiana Hot Sauce,
Cajun King, Cajun Injector, Casa Fiesta Mexican
foods and Bruce’s Yams. More than 1,200
employees work at facilities in El Paso, TX; Lozes,
LA; New Iberia, LA; and Wilson, NC. Bruce Foods
distributes their products across the U.S. and in
more than 100 countries in Europe, the Middle
East and Asia, to most top retail grocery chains
and the foodservice industry, as well as being
an important supplier to other industrial food
processors.
THE CHALLENGE
The food manufacturing and distribution
company had been using a ‘heavily customized
system’ comprised of legacy software JBA ERP
and Red Prairie WMS across all four of their
locations, says Keith Kern, IT Director at Bruce
Foods. “There was a difficult interface between
those two systems; the JBA system was
outgrown and based on AS400 technology that
was difficult to train younger employees in. The
average age of our employees is late 20s to
early 30s,” notes Kern.
Bruce Foods needed to find an all-in-one
ERP/WMS system to go live at four facilities at
the same time, which added “considerable
complication,” Kern admits. “Moving away from
a leading-edge WMS to a newly developed
software module was another big challenge,”
he says. “Any time you take something away
from a user, you get resistance… but everyone
ultimately understood that it was better to have
the WMS integrated within the ERP system.”
“ The JustFoodERP implementation was the quietest go-live we’ve ever gone
through.”
Norm Brown Sr., Chairman
Bruce Foods Corporation
9
BRUCE
FOODS
BRUCE
FOODS CORPORATION
CORPORATION
ALMONDINA
® BRAND COOKIES
THE SOLUTION
When a new COO came on board at Bruce
Foods, his “wish list” for better
functionality for the ERP system kept
getting longer and longer, says Kern, “so
we decided to start over from scratch
rather than trying to modify the existing
systems.” Even before the COO came
on board, Kern had been tracking JustFoodERP for a number of years. “I had attended some JustFoodERP webinars and was
pretty impressed with them,” he says,
“specifically with their ease of use, and
that JustFoodERP really understands the
food industry.”
After much research, Kern and the COO
narrowed the vendors down to
JustFoodERP and SAP; the COO had used
SAP software at another company. At that
point they brought in all the department
heads at Bruce Foods. JustFoodERP
gained traction “when it came to meeting
our all-round business requirements,” says
Kern, “we really wanted something with
specific functionality that meets the needs
of food companies.” He adds, “We had
confidence in JustFoodERP’s numbers
around billable hours and other costs.
We were not as confident with SAP’s
numbers,” says Kern.
THE BENEFITS
He continues: “In the conference room, the
JustFoodERP folks answered all our questions,
not just theoretical answers but
demonstrating it in the software, whereas
other vendors were shy about showing their
software.” Kern says one SAP customer
reference said their SAP implementation was
behind schedule and over budget, while all
the JustFoodERP customer references were
positive.
Another factor in their decision was Bruce
Foods being invited to the JustFoodERP User
Event “even before we signed as a customer…
that was impressive,” Kern notes. “JustFoodERP’s willingness to expose their potential
customers to their users says a lot about their
confidence in their software and services, and
it says a lot about JustFoodERP being open to
discussing and solving problems.”
“We had a simultaneous rollout at all
four of our locations of the integrated
JustFoodERP system… we went live
from WMS all the way through to EDI
in one day.”
Keith Kern, IT Director
Bruce Foods Corporation
The implementation of the JustFoodERP
system went so well that Kern and the rest of
the IT department won the President’s Award
presented at Bruce Foods’ annual
management conference. It is the first time in
the company’s 84-year history that the
award, given to a team or individual who has
made a significant improvement to
operations, has gone to anyone in the IT
department. Norm Brown Sr., Chairman,
Bruce Foods, told Kern that the JustFoodERP
implementation was “the quietest go-live
we’ve ever gone through.”
Some of the specific benefits that have
resulted from the multi-site implementation of
JustFoodERP at Bruce Foods include:
• Container Management – replacing their old
pallet management system. “We do a lot of
our own distribution, and we ship in varying
UOMs, with lots of partial-pallet shipping,”
says Kern. The Container Management
function within JustFoodERP was developed
to meet this requirement.
• JF Floor – the extension of the JustFoodERP
system across hand-held wireless devices is
used by some 50 employees at the four
locations of Bruce Foods. While warehouse
workers had been using barcode scanning
guns before, they now had full integration
with the ERP system from the warehouse
and shop floor.
10
BRUCE
FOODS
BRUCE
FOODS CORPORATION
CORPORATION
ALMONDINA
® BRAND COOKIES
THE BENEFITS
• Enhanced use of the ASN document to allow
for additional mapping format. “Now we can
do EDI and ship notices and customer
compliance labeling all within the JustFoodERP
system,” says Kern. “The majority of Bruce
sales require EDI, and ASN is a growing side of
our business.”
• Reporting: Kern is happy with the customized
analytics and reports that business users
across the company can generate within
JustFoodERP. “Reporting used to be an IT
function,” he says, “now it is an accounting
function.”
THE FUTURE
Next up for the JustFoodERP project at Bruce
Foods is to roll out the Quality Management
module at all the facilities, and then the
Product Development piece of the JustFoodERP
system.
“I would recommend
JustFoodERP to other food
companies… the people at
JustFoodERP are really
dedicated to solving issues,
there is no red tape, -and
we get a hold of senior
management”
Keith Kern, IT Director
Bruce Foods Corporation
“I would recommend JustFoodERP to other
food companies,” says Kern. “The people at
JustFoodERP are really dedicated to solving
issues, there is no red tape, and we get a hold
of senior management at JustFoodERP if we
need to.”
Kern and his team even named one of the
business analysts at JustFoodERP “an honorary
Cajun” because he spent so much time in
Louisiana during the implementation and “he
could really deal with us, we can be obnoxious
characters,” laughs Kern.
11
DEMET’S
CANDY
COMPANY
BRUCE FOODS
CORPORATION
DEMET’S
CANDY
COMPANY
ALMONDINA
® BRAND
COOKIES
CUSTOMER PROFILE
“We were up and running
live with JustFoodERP
on time and on budget.
The three-month
implementation goal was
met, to replace legacy
SAP software, and we
rolled out JustFoodERP to
all three facilities
progressively.
Jim Gerbo, VP Marketing
DeMet’s Candy Company
Headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut,
DeMet’s Candy Company are the makers
of TURTLES® and FLIPZ® products. DeMet’s
is dedicated to using the highest quality
manufacturing processes and working with
cutting edge technology to maintain its
brands. DeMet’s Candy products are
distributed through supermarkets, drug
stores and virtually all channels of trade.
THE CHALLENGE
DeMet’s Candy purchased the U.S. portion of
the TURTLES® business from NESTLÉ® along
with the facility that produced TURTLES®. This
facility was using SAP to run its operations, and
DeMet’s was required to move off the NESTLÉ®
SAP system.
What was especially challenging for DeMet’s
was the tight implementation schedule imposed
by their purchase agreement with NESTLÉ®;
they had three months to get off SAP before
they were liable to pay for their use of the
SAP system.
DeMet’s other existing facilities were using
SAGE MAS 500, but DeMet’s had a limited
degree of confidence that SAGE was up to the
task of managing this new facility, let alone
the existing facilities. After two attempts, they
were not able to get accurate inventory tracking
even after working with two different SAGE
resellers. They decided to invest in a new ERP
system.
12
DEMET’S
CANDY
COMPANY
BRUCE FOODS
CORPORATION
DEMET’S
CANDY
COMPANY
ALMONDINA
® BRAND
COOKIES
THE SOLUTIONS
With an outsourced IT department,
DeMet’s was looking for a solution that did
not require dedicated IT resources. After
working with MAS 500 and not having easy
access to Excel and Word, they decided
they wanted everything to integrate into
Microsoft Office. The decision was made to
standardize on a Microsoft platform for
ERP too.
Their sister company, Stella D’oro, was
already using Microsoft Dynamics
successfully, but this implementation had
a high degree of customization. With the
tight implementation schedule, DeMet’s
needed a Dynamics partner who had
already developed the functionality most
food companies require as part of an
out-of-the-box solution.
The choice was to work with
JustFoodERP. “Flexible enough to
meet our needs, we changed a
few of our procedures that
JustFoodERP’s software addressed
with better industry practices,”
says Jim Gerbo, VP Marketing.
THE BENEFITS
“Aside from having accurate data and a
fast implementation, we were up and
running live on time and on budget. The
hree-month implementation goal was met,
and we rolled out the software to all three
facilities progressively and on time,” Gerbo
points out.
With three facilities all needing to go live,
DeMet’s utilized the adaptability and
scalability of JustFoodERP. Gerbo mentions
that “One big benefit of using JustFoodERP
is that we can add functionality at our own
pace. Because of time constraints, we
selected the most critical functionality we
wanted to focus on first. Now we can add
functionality according to the importance of
how we see it.”
“Our future plans include
integrating our Consumer
Affairs into JustFoodERP.”
THE FUTURE
“This will allow us to respond to
consumer inquiries much easier.
Our Consumer Representative will
be able to take a call from a
consumer and instantly associate
the product in question to a
pecific lot number. With this
information, we can analyze our
quality issues on a lot-by-lot
basis.”
“Our users find the system
is easy to use and navigate
because it looks like the
Microsoft Office and Outlook
applications they were already
using. And everyone loves the
integration to Word and
Excel.”
Jim Gerbo, VP Marketing,
DeMet’s Candy Company
13
GIOVANNI
FOOD
COMPANY,
INC.
BRUCE FOODS
CORPORATION
DEMET’S
CANDY
COMPANY
ALMONDINA
® BRAND
COOKIES
CUSTOMER PROFILE
“In terms of growth,
JustFoodERP is limitless;
there are no boundaries
except my own
company’s resources.
There is so much more
to be done with the
system – quality management, product
testing – attached to
every lot we produce –
it can all be handled by
JustFoodERP.”
Louis DeMent, Co-Owner
Giovanni Food Company, Inc.
Giovanni Food Company, Inc. has been making
tomato-based sauces since 1934 when
customers of the Oswego, NY Italian-style
restaurant run by the DeMent family wanted to
take their pasta sauces home. That business
has evolved into a leading manufacturer,
selling these sauces to grocery and specialty
stores across America and abroad, with sauce
brands such as DeMent’s, Greenview Kitchen,
Harvest Traditions, Luigi Giovanni, and Tuscan
Traditions, and Jose Pedro salsa. Giovanni is
also a private label manufacturer for the past
three decades, and one of the largest makers
of spaghetti sauce for the USDA Food for Kids
program and the Needy Families program.
Giovanni employs more than 65 people at its
67,000-square-foot headquarters in Syracuse
and at its 60,000-square-foot warehouse in
the nearby town of Liverpool. The company
uses California tomatoes and makes their
sauces in micro-batches, crafted to order and
hot filled. Giovanni’s processes and facilities
are certified to Kosher, USDA Organic, Quality
Assurance International, and Green-e Marketplace renewable-energy standards.
THE CHALLENGE
The company had been using a legacy ERP system,
DBA, since 1998. That software didn’t meet Giovanni’s
needs anymore – such as the need for accurate,
real-time inventory, and for lot traceability – since the
company had grown so much in the ensuing dozen
years.
Giovanni had a false start in 2010 with a very large
ERP vendor, whom they at first favored in part
because it was geographically close to Giovanni
headquarters. “But we realized it wasn’t right for us
at the blueprint phase, just prior to implementation,”
says Louis DeMent, co-owner and General Manager
at Giovanni. “Once we got to see that large company’s
software in play, it was a much more rigid system
than they had told us.” They pulled out of the deal and
went with JustFoodERP. “We decided to make a move
to a solution with a better food industry fit and better
product road map.” He adds, “We also chose
JustFoodERP for its excellent customer service and
product knowledge.”
DeMent attended the 2011 JustFoodERP User Event,
where he learned more about the product, connected
in person with JustFoodERP resources, and networked
with peers in the food industry. He was so impressed
that he sent an employee to the 2012 JustFoodERP
User Event, and plans to keep his company attending
these events in the future.
14
GIOVANNI
FOOD
COMPANY,
INC.
BRUCE FOODS
CORPORATION
DEMET’S
CANDY
COMPANY
ALMONDINA
® BRAND
COOKIES
THE SOLUTION
“With real-time
inventory values
maintained within
JustFoodERP, we can
price accurately so we
can win bids against
some of the largest
food companies out
there.”
Louis DeMent, Co-Owner
Giovanni Food Company,
Inc.
The first phase of JustFoodERP
implementation included finance, sales
operations, inventory, purchasing, planning,
and production. The priority for the first
phase was to capture and maintain accurate
inventory levels, and the commencement of
lot tracking raw materials and finished goods.
Seven Giovanni employees, led by the
controller, made up the internal implementation team. “We don’t have a lot of levels
within our company,” notes DeMent. “The
JustFoodERP implementation team was
really good; they worked extra hours and
stayed until the job got done.”
Giovanni is now implementing the warehouse
management system (WMS) including JF
Floor – the mobile interface that uses any
browser to extend the full ERP system across
handheld bar code scanner guns to record
raw and packaging materials and finished
goods, for processes such as physical
cycle counts, staging, batching, quality hold,
bin location changes, and transfers. DeMent
has big plans for JF Floor, which will start out
with seven users at both locations;
“Eventually I want to get to point where we
use JF Floor for consumption as well as
tracking inventory.”
THE BENEFITS
DeMent says benefits of JustFoodERP include the
ability to maintain real-time inventory values, and
to know what, when, and how much to purchase.
“Running our pricing accurately was a huge problem
before JustFoodERP; it is fairly easy now, and further
use of reporting features will help with this,” he says.
“More accurate pricing means we can win bids against
some of the largest food companies out there.”
Lot tracking “is fairly seamless now” in JustFoodERP,
says DeMent, which is critical in particular for
communicating this information to USDA for
government contracts. “Before JustFoodERP, we had
to hand-write the next-day tomato paste consumption
and lot number.” Now that tracking is automated,
“Any problems that occur are strictly human error, and
we are getting JustFoodERP Floor to help minimize
those errors, and save money,” notes DeMent.
He adds that the familiar Microsoft look and feel
of the JustFoodERP product has helped speed up
the learning curve of Giovanni employees using the
system, and “We like that the data from JustFoodERP
can easily be imported to other Microsoft programs.”
The accounting team at Giovanni is using the Trade
Promotions module in JustFoodERP to track rebates
– slotting, bill backs, and the like.
15
GIOVANNI
FOOD
COMPANY,
INC.
BRUCE FOODS
CORPORATION
ALMONDINA
® BRAND
COOKIES
DEMET’S CANDY COMPANY
THE FUTURE
“We hope to use the JustFoodERP’s production
scheduling and MRP engine more effectively, to
update our planning parameters, and to do more
reporting,” says DeMent.
Their sales and marketing person is getting some
training with JustFoodERP on reporting. “I need
to see good reports that summarize the entire
enterprise, the whole picture,” says DeMent. “When
I see a sales report I want it to be as detailed, as top
level as possible. I need the fluidity to do reports any
way I want.”
The company has been using Microsoft Dynamics
CRM for about a year now, to handle customer
relationship management, and they plan to
connect the CRM to the JustFoodERP system in
the near future. “I’m excited about all these
components of the JustFoodERP implementation,”
says DeMent. “I’m starting to lay the foundation for
where Giovanni will be five years from now.”
“I have recommended JustFoodERP to other
companies,” says DeMent, “it is adaptable and
flexible to your needs. I can make changes myself,
which I wasn’t able to do with the other system.”
“In terms of growth, JustFoodERP is limitless; there
are no boundaries except my own company’s
resources. There is so much more to be done with
the system – quality management, product testing –
attached to every lot we produce – it can all be
handled by JustFoodERP.”
16
ROGER WOOD
FOODS
DEMET’S
CANDY
COMPANY
ROGER WOOD FOODS
CUSTOMER PROFILE
“I would recommend
JustFoodERP. I think their
software functionality is
very good as is their
process, and JustFoodERP
has a very talented
group of staff. We will
continue to grow
alongside them as a
customer and a partner.”
Adger Ross, Director of IT
Roger Wood Foods
Meat processor
Roger Wood Foods is a family-owned and
operated meat processor operating in
Savannah, Georgia since 1936; the current
owners, David and Mark Solana, are grandsons of the founder Roger Wood. More than
400,000 pounds a week of smoked sausage
and other smoked meat – under the brands
Roger Wood, Roger Wood Lumberjack, and
Redwood – are produced at a 100,000-sq.-ft.
facility. Their products are distributed to
national and regional grocery store chains,
including Walmart, Food Lion, Publix and
Kroger, and foodservice across Georgia, North
Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama,
and Virginia. The SQF-certified company
employs about 200 people in the plant, warehouse and office in Savannah.
“Plenty of software out there
can handle either catch weight
or standard weight products,
but none except JustFoodERP
can handle both.”
Adger Ross, Director of ITRoger
Wood Foods
THE CHALLENGE
Roger Wood Foods had been using a Microsoft
Dynamics NAV-based ERP system that was heavily
modified to handle the ompany’s combination of
standard weights and catch weights – unique in the
meat processing industry. After about six years, when
Microsoft began to retire the older Navision product,
Roger Wood Foods found they could not upgrade their
customized system; as a result, they began looking for
a new ERP system.
Adger Ross, Director of IT at Roger Wood Foods,
was an independent software consultant when the
company used its first NAV system, and he sat on
the board while they investigated ERP vendors this
time around. Those included SAP BusinessOne in
conjunction with Batchmaster, Syspro, their former
NAV partner, a handful of smaller ‘boutique-style’
software providers, and JustFoodERP.
“Although some vendors claimed to be able to handle
catch weights, they were small companies that I had
never heard of,” Ross notes. “We wanted to know
our ERP partner is going to be around for the long
run.” JustFoodERP committed to developing the
functionality for both standard and catch weights for
the Roger Wood Foods facility.
JustFoodERP was also selected because of their
commitment to the food industry, says Ross, and the
fact that they avoided the problem of their earlier NAV
partner of ‘version lock’ where software upgrades
were not
possible. “But JustFoodERP manages their customizations in a different manner, such that upgrading is
always an option. That was a big, big factor for us!”
17
ROGER WOOD
FOODS
DEMET’S
CANDY
COMPANY
THE SOLUTION
Roger Wood Foods went live with their JustFoodERP
system in September 2012, starting with Financials,
Manufacturing, and WMS. “Warehousing is one of the
biggest changes from our old system,” says Ross. Three
warehouse managers are using JF Floor – the browseren
abledinterface for JustFoodERP via barcode scanner
guns – as well as five pickers in receiving output from
production, shipping, and pallets, cleanup, etc., at the
same time.
“A huge factor for us with JustFoodERP is the
containerization functionality,” says Ross.
“Containerization allows for picking of a container full
of cases without having to scan individual cases.” This
matters in particular with catch weights, since every
case (there can be 50 or 60 cases in a container) will be
of a different weight; the single-scan of the container’s
license plate solves this.
JustFoodERP developers have been working with Roger
Wood Foods on creating the catch weight functionality
to suit the meat processor. “There is a solid foundation
for the catch weight functionality – with stability and
scalability – that will improve with future versions,”
says Ross. Benefits include visibility of the catch weight
on the item tracking page wherever item tracking is
available in the system (e.g. all inventory transactions);
the cost that hits the inventory is based on the actual
catch weight of the case – for purchased as well as
manufacturing products. If distribution item charges
(e.g. freight, duty, etc.) to catch weight items, it can be
done by the actual catch weight in order to get a more
accurate cost distribution.
THE BENEFITS
Although the ERP implementation is
only a few months old, and they are
still in the process of fine tuning the
catch-weight functionality, Ross says
the JustFoodERP system is improving
processes and making their workforce
more efficient already.
“I would recommend JustFoodERP.
I think their software functionality is
very good as is their process, especially their whole methodology for
upgrades.” He adds that
“JustFoodERP has a very talented
group of staff – in both implementation and support. As long as JustFoodERP continues to grow the product,
we’ll continue to grow alongside as a
customer and a partner.”
THE FUTURE
Roger Wood Foods will go live
with the Quality Management
piece of the JustFoodERP
system later in 2013. And they
are looking at adopting JF
Plant – a robust, standalone
application that brings shop
floor functionality to the desktop or any Windows device
using a touch-friendly light
interface.
“JustFoodERP manages their customizations
such that upgrading is always an option.
That was a big, big factor for us!”
Adger Ross, Director of IT Roger Wood Foods
18
THE ORIGINAL
CAKERIE
DEMET’S
CANDY
COMPANY
We have better control
between the time we
manufacture and the time
we do the testing. Shipping
products occurs once all
testing has been received
and validated.
Eric Murphy,
Director, Information Technology
The Original Cakerie
CUSTOMER PROFILE
Starting in 1979 as a small industrial bakery
producing desserts for restaurants in British
Columbia, The Original Cakerie (TOC) opened
its Vancouver head office and plant in 1989,
and a second baking facility and warehouse in
London, Ontario in 2011. Today they are the
largest privately owned dessert manufacturer
in Canada, employing some 500 people, with
their frozen single-layer and supersize layer
cakes, sheet cakes and sheet dessert bars sold
to in the foodservice and retail markets in
Canada and the U.S.
THE CHALLENGE
Back in 2006, TOC’s biggest challenge was the lack
of a single, integrated system, which created data
silos and a lack of data visibility,” says Eric Murphy,
Director, Information Technology. The company
had been using many internally built applications,
backed by Great Plains on the financials side. These
home grown systems were not able to sustain the
challenge of business growth, so TOC looked into
investing in an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
system. “Our internal team, which represented
each business unit, came down to two solutions
that were a possible fit to work with: IFS and
JustFoodERP,” Murphy recalls, and his team chose
the “user-friendly and adaptable” JustFoodERP
system built on the powerful ERP platform,
Microsoft Dynamics.
The Original Cakerie has long seen a direct link
between technology and the ability to anticipate
and adapt to growth. “You could say I’m a model
IT person in that I invest in a system and I want all
of the system to work for us,” says Murphy of his
seven-year journey to date with JustFoodERP as
their software technology partner.
19
THE ORIGINAL
CAKERIE
DEMET’S
CANDY
COMPANY
THE SOLUTION
Phase 1 Implementation
With 80 users going live simultaneously at the
Vancouver location in 2006, the JustFoodERP
implementation included Financials, Payroll, Human
Resources, Fixed Assets, and TargIT as well as
Manufacturing, Quality Control, Preventive
Maintenance, and Labor Scheduling functionality. The
latter piece was built so TOC employees can pick the
days and hours they want to work and have it recorded in the ERP system. “Labor Scheduling was, and
remains, a huge win for us,” says Murphy, “meeting
our employee preferences, shift time, position, visibility
for all – based on production orders and labor emand,
coming from the routing – connecting all this, with
systematic assignment of shifts based on all this slew
of criteria.”
Phase 2 Implementation
Today, the 80 users are spread between the two
locations – about 60 of them at the Vancouver
facility. Functionality within JustFoodERP has
extended since Phase 1 to include several other
aspects of the software system, including a big
focus on improving Quality Management processes,
as well as earning food safety certification, trade
promotion management, and some laboratory
functionality such as product development.
The JustFoodERP warehouse management system
is in the works.
Driven by customer demand, TOC spent 2012 involved
in the process of certifying to the BRC Food Standard,
which falls under the Global Food Safety Initiative
(GFSI) standard for food safety and quality. BRC
certification requires procedural changes to their
business, which can be accommodated by
JustFoodERP. “We’re very proud of being BRC certified
at both our facilities,” says Murphy. “BRC fit into our
goal to delivering safe quality food… we have good
traceability all the way through to corrective action.”
The highest level (‘A’) of BRC certification was first
completed mid-2012 at TOC’s 400-employee
Vancouver, British Columbia plant and head office
followed by certification at the London, Ontario facility
by the end of 2012. Both facilities have received Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), and Food and
Drug Agency (FDA) approvals following evaluation of
their Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) and HACCP
programs.
At each location, a cross-functional team across all
business units, led by the company’s QA Director,
worked on the BRC certification process. TOC
employees worked on the integration of shop floor
reporting to capture variations and deviations that are
captured on the Variation Form. An event is created
that is tracked within the company’s JustFoodERP
system “so we know exactly when these variations
have occurred, by whom and for which product,” says
Murphy. The event is assigned to a supervisor and
reviewed. If it requires further investigation, they have
integrated BRC’s Corrective Action Form within
JustFoodERP.
“The elimination of
duplicate information
is key to managing
the shop floor.”
Eric Murphy, Director
Information Technology
The Original Cakerie
“We’re very proud of
being BRC certified at
both our facilities,
which fits into our
goal to deliver safe
quality food... we have
good traceability all
the way through
to corrective action.”
Eric Murphy, Director,
Information Technology
The Original Cakerie
20
THE ORIGINAL
CAKERIE
DEMET’S
CANDY
COMPANY
THE SOLUTION
In the Quality Management piece of their ERP
system, TOC has integrated Lot Holds
functionality so their QA team can assign
specific dispositions on the lot or action item,
and from that point on, the operations team
does what needs to be done; when the lot is
released, it can ship. “We’re working on what
we call ‘positive release;’ based on product
subject to testing, the system will automatically
put the lock on a pre-determined time on hold.
After a certain window of time, the product is
released and ready to ship,” Murphy says.
“We want better control between the time we
manufacture and the time we do the testing, so
we don’t send any product that might have to
be recalled.”
TOC is also in the midst of fully integrating all
their recipe information, including instructions
within the production Bill of Materials (BOM)
and product specifications, into one central
repository. “The elimination of duplicate
information is key to managing the shop floor,”
Murphy notes. “Capturing data costs money; if
data is entered once, you should be able to use
it across your system.”
With a new product development person
driving that piece of the JustFoodERP system,
the company is working with laboratory
functionalities. “We want to separate (product)
BOM and product development, so we will have
a less restrictive environment for product development,” says Murphy.
On the sales side, trade promotions are
managed within JustFoodERP for foodservice
customers, with plans to roll the TPM technology
out for retail, too. “We have created a broker
portal to help share product profile information
with our broker community, and now are looking
at adding more confidential information such as
volume-based reports (trade spend requests,
rebate requests, etc.) into the broker portal,”
says Murphy.
Phase 3 Implementation
TOC is looking into implementing the
Warehouse Management (WMS) piece
of their JustFoodERP system, including
its mobility-enabled JF Floor
functionality, with the goal to “bring
speed of execution and barcode
scanning” at the two TOC warehouses
(one in each of their locations), for
a “more efficient flow of information
between inventory, staging and
product use,” says Murphy. “From a
traceability perspective, barcodes are
a huge enabler.”
The company has used Electronic Data
Interchange (EDI) technology within JustFoodERP
since their 2006 implementation, but nowadays
“we’re using lot more EDI than ever before, and
we’re now looking into support for Advance
Shipping Notice [ASN],” says Murphy. “The
biggest retailers are driving this requirement.”
21
THE ORIGINAL
CAKERIE
DEMET’S
CANDY
COMPANY
THE BENEFITS
The fact of having gone from all data silo
applications across different departments
to one main ERP system, where “90% of
our business processes are centralized…
is a success on its own,” states Murphy.
“Real time visibility of our shop floor has
been a big win from what we had before
JustFoodERP was implemented.” “Now we
have more insight on the true cost of
manufacturing, of course we want even
more.” Everything that TOC is doing
with technology is “providing for our
customers’ growth,” says Murphy, but
“Also it helps us look at how we do things
and drives improvement within our
organization.”
THE FUTURE
“We just built a three-year roadmap for IT plans
at the company,” says Murphy, and there is lots
of room in it for continuing expansion of their
JustFoodERP system. “My philosophy is that the
system should enable our people to do their
work more effectively by automating the
non-valued added tasks, increasing productivity
and capacity.”
Pushing intelligent forms directly to the system,
once workflow approvals are done, is the
end-game; TOC is documenting all their
business procedures and process workflows.
“We have full-blown documentation in
SharePoint, and once we build a bridge to
seamlessly integrate that into our JustFoodERP
system, it will give us the ability to really look at
the gaps where business process management
can happen.
Murphy adds that “Another opportunity for us
this fiscal year will be more advanced Business
Intelligence, more around our core operations
which is manufacturing.” As well,
capacity-based planning and growth is very
much on the minds of TOC management; the
company serves West Coast and East Coast of
both Canada and the U.S. out of their
respectively located plants and warehouses.
The Original Cakerie is looking
into implementing the
Warehouse Management
System within JustFoodERP,
including its mobilityenabled
JF Floor functionality, with
the goal of bringing speed of
execution and barcode
scanning at their two
warehouses
“We have created a portal
to help share product
profile information with
our broker community,
and now are looking at
adding more confidential
information such as
volume-based reports.”
Eric Murphy,
Director, Information Technology
The Original Cakerie
22
TW GARNER
FOOD
COMPANY
DEMET’S
CANDY
COMPANY
THE ORIGINAL CAKERIE
CUSTOMER PROFILE
TW Garner Food Company is a thirdgeneration family-owned and operated
business in Winston- Salem, NC that
makes Texas Pete® hot sauces,
wing sauces and chili sauces, and the
Green Mountain Gringo® line of salsas
and tortilla strips.
In 1929, at the onset of the Great Depression, 17-yearold Thad Garner purchased
the Dixie Pig BBQ Stand. Thad, along with
his dad Sam Garner, his mom Ila Jane and
his six siblings, began making and selling
the barbeque sauce whose recipe he
inherited with the purchase of the
restaurant. Sam and three of his sons,
Thad, Ralph and Harold, formed a
partnership and in 1946 they incorporated
TW Garner Food Company. The factory
used today was constructed in 1942 on
the site of the original Garner family home,
and has been added to many times in
succeeding years. Today the company
employs about 100 people at its two
warehouses and manufacturing facility in
Winston-Salem.
TW Garner Food Company distributes its
products nationally to foodservice outlets,
distributor outlets and retail outlets – including convenience store chains – through a
variety of channels. For the last decade, a
modest percentage of their sales have come
through e-commerce on their brands’ websites, at higher than retail prices, with the
intention of having more presence in pockets of the U.S. market where they are less
widely
distributed. Texas Pete® Hot Sauce is the
#1-selling brand in the South and #3 nationally in volume. Green Mountain Gringo®
Salsas are the #1-selling brand of salsas in
the natural food world.
TW Garner also serves the military in both
Commissary and Troop Feeding arenas.
Servicepersons introduced to the products
during enlistment often become regular
consumers at home. The company is
expanding sales also into the healthcare
industry, as well as internationally into
Canada and the European Union.
Compared to what we used to look at in our old system, JustFoodERP
provides so much more information about our business. We are looking
forward to moving deeper with JustFoodERP.
Ann Garner Riddle, President & CEO, TW Garner Food Company
THE CHALLENGE
For the last decade, a modest percentage of their sales have come through
e-commerce on their brands’ websites, at
higher
than retail prices, with the intention of
having more presence in pockets of the
U.S. market where they are less widely
distributed. Texas Pete® Hot Sauce is
the #1-selling brand in the South and #3
nationally in volume. Green Mountain
Gringo® Salsas are the #1-selling brand
of salsas in the natural food world.
TW Garner also serves the military in
both Commissary and Troop Feeding
arenas. Servicepersons introduced
to the products during enlistment often
become regular consumers at home. The
company is expanding sales also into the
healthcare industry, as well as internationally into Canada and the European
Union.
“I would recommend JustFoodERP
to any food company that wants to
configure something new that
works for their business now and
for future generations.”
Ann Garner Riddle,
President & CEO
TW Garner Food Company
23
TW GARNER
FOOD
COMPANY
DEMET’S
CANDY
COMPANY
THE CHALLENGE
For two decades, TW Garner had been
using general business management
office software that was customwritten
for them. It was going to be costly to
modernize the AS/400-based flat file
system, which didn’t support newer
processes emerging at TW Garner, such
as EDI requirements and improved
traceability. “Lot traceability and recall
functionality were some of the ‘must
haves’ during the evaluation of ERP
systems,” says Pat O’Doherty,
Information Services Manager.
They sent an RFP to 15 vendors, including
Sage,ProcessPro, and another Microsoft
Dynamics partner. JustFoodERP was
selected because “their team really
understands our business,” said Ann
Garner Riddle, President and CEO of TW
Garner. “Aside from providing the
functionality that we needed,
JustFoodERP’s expertise in the food
industry makes them an integral part of
the future of our business. We see this as
a partnership not just a software
purchase.”
THE SOLUTION
“JustFoodERP is one of
the more responsive
customer service groups
I’ve ever worked with...
their staff is easy to
work with.”
Pat O’Doherty, Information
Services Manager
TW Garner Food Company
The choice of JustFoodERP, based on the Microsoft
Dynamics platform, leverages the existing Microsoft
infrastructure at TW Garner – Outlook, Excel, SQL
server pieces, as well as employee skill level in using
Microsoft products. Using a Microsoft Dynamicsbased
ERP system has made some of their people
stronger in Microsoft applications overall, says
O’Doherty.
“I cannot imagine using anything else but Microsoft in
the decades to come,” says Garner Riddle. “I’m third
generation in our company; I’ve got fourth generation
working for me… it wouldn’t have worked if I had picked
a GUI interface or AS-400 green screen, which is what I
personally know well.”
TW Garner implemented all the JustFoodERP modules at
once for their go-live in April, 2012. “It was huge, but I
don’t know how you could do it otherwise,” says Garner
Riddle. “Because of the overlap between staff and data,
how can you start with finance without a foundation in
building a BOM [bill of material] for example… it’s all
interconnected.”
“We decided it would be less disruptive to users to
implement everything at once,” says O’Doherty.
“Going from effectively an electronic typewriter green
screen IT environment to point-and-click software that
makes automatic changes – from a flat file system to a
fully integrated system – was enough of a culture shock.”
24
TW GARNER
FOOD
COMPANY
DEMET’S
CANDY
COMPANY
THE SOLUTION
“It was a steep learning curve for our
employees to grasp the fact that as soon as
they make a change, it’s in the system,”
notes Garner Riddle. “I don’t have many
users who aren’t happy now – most of them
are jumping in and figuring it out... Me, I’m
happy as a clam.”
Having strong, well-documented business
processes has been an asset in TW Garner’s
go-live, especially since they had only a
dozen or so employees on their internal
implementation team. “We are very lean in
administrative staff, accounting, sales and
QA for example,” says Garner Riddle.
Particularly operationally, “our processes
were excellent,” she notes. “I weave
processes into everything – at Christmas last
year I shared with our staff my 6P Principle:
‘Processes and Procedures and Paperwork
done Properly put Profit in your Pocket’…
I was discussing employee benefits at the
time. Our being able to offer excellent
benefits is entirely dependent upon all staff
following proper procedures all day, every
day. ”
THE BENEFITS
The lot traceability and recall functionality
in JustFoodERP are working well, says
O’Doherty; fortunately, the company has
had to do only mock recalls so far. “You
cannot run a food business today
without traceability,” says Garner Riddle.
TW Garner is integrating Jet Enterprise, with
a high degree of business intelligence and
reporting functionality – updating from Jet
Reports. “We currently have monthly
updates,” says O’Doherty. “We want daily
updates so that we are aware what orders
are in, what has shipped, who’s paid us and
who hasn’t.” The company found that a full
data warehousing approach would be
easier for their sales staff and others to use,
and as such they are implementing Jet
Enterprise.
“I love the reporting functionality I’m
discovering within JustFoodERP,” says
Garner Riddle. “I love being able to dig
data out and drill out into numbers in my
general ledger. I have over 40 years’
experience in our company and I love
seeing how it all fits together.”
TW Garner is integrating trade promotion
management software from TradeInsight
as an add-on to their JustFoodERP system.
“It will improve the responsibility of
managing the costs of trade promotions,
clearing up deductions, and the like. We
had pieces of paper to do this before,” says
Garner Riddle. “I have high hopes for the
TPM software.”
The company is using the Product
Development module of JustFoodERP for
new certified WIP tags that come with the
BOM, with plans to greatly expand this
functionality for their sauce and salsa
product lines.
To deal with about 80% of their customers
who require EDI (electronic data interchange), “we are currently using the JustFoodERP’s EDI Connector,” says O’Doherty.
At the moment many of their trading
partners are connected to their older-style
value added network (VAN), with plans to
integrate them into the new EDI process
within their JustFoodERP system.
25
TW GARNER
FOOD
COMPANY
DEMET’S
CANDY
COMPANY
THE BENEFITS
“JustFoodERP is one of the more responsive
customer service groups I’ve ever worked
with,” says O’Doherty. “JustFoodERP customer service staff is easy to work with;
even if we make an obvious mistake, they
are there to help us through it so we don’t
make it again.”
“Aside from providing
the functionality
that we needed, JustFoodERP’s expertise
in the food industry
makes them
an integral part of the
future of our
business. We see this as
a partnership
not just a software purchase.”
Ann Garner Riddle,
President & CEO
TW Garner Food Company
The Original Cakerie
THE FUTURE
TW Garner is planning to implement the
Warehouse Management System (WMS)
module of JustFoodERP. WMS was missing
in the company’s legacy ERP system, “So
we’ve implemented it at a basic level, to
monitor and manage transfers of materials,
not yet to its full capacity yet,” says
O’Doherty. “We’re getting our materials
handling people used to working with a
computer, as they never had to before.”
TW Garner is also looking at implementing
a portal for smaller customers who cannot
afford or don’t want to do EDI, to replace all
the emails that come in for orders and other
communications, says O’Doherty.
The company will also integrate JF Floor –
the browser-based interface that extends
the JustFoodERP system across handheld
scanning devices. To start, six forklift-mounted devices and three handheld
units loaded with JF Floor will be
implemented between their two
warehouses. Data will be captured on the
spot by warehouse employees, allowing for
real-time flow of inventory.
Once JF Floor is up and running and serial
shipping container codes (SSCC) are being
used, TW Garner will add the Advance Ship
Notice (ASN) functionality within JustFoodERP – integrated with EDI – to meet the
demands of their half-dozen customers who
require ASN documentation on shipments.
26
VITA -PAKT
CITRUS
PRODUCTS
CO.
DEMET’S
CANDY
COMPANY
CUSTOMER PROFILE
JustFoodERP helps us
find the information
that is most relevant to
our business, faster and
easier.
Robert Naugle,
Plant Manager,
Vita-Pakt Citrus Products Co.
Vita-Pakt Citrus Products Co., based in Covina,
California and founded in 1957, is a vertically
integrated processor of citrus and kiwi fruit
products and is dedicated to the production of
the highest quality natural ingredients for
food and beverage manufacturers around the
world. Their signature products include frozen
orange and lemon peel items – mainstay
ingredients in the baking industry. For the spice,
tea, brewing, and other food industries,
Vita-Pakt makes single strength, not-fromconcentrate juices, all natural juice concentrates,
beverage bases, citrus oils, purees, and specialty
citrus peel products from dried and milled
granules.
Aside from their headquarters and a distribution
center for frozen products located in Covina,
Vita-Pakt has a manufacturing facility in
Lindsay, CA where they produce frozen peel and
blended products and concentrates.
The company also owns a dehydrator in Del Rey,
CA and a dry milling operation in Fresno,
where dried products such as orange and lemon
peel is turned into spices as well as used in
product such as Belgian-style wheat beer and
herbal teas.
THE CHALLENGE
A driver in Vita-Pakt’s search for an Enterprise
Resource Planning (ERP) system was the need
to move to an integrated system – away from
inefficient systems that required manual entry
of data, and employees running their own
spreadsheets that didn’t tie production data
to processing data. Accessibility to data by
everyone in the company was also important
to Vita-Pakt, says plant manager Robert
Naugle.
Item traceability was another key
consideration; they required the ability to track
product both forward and backward in the
supply chain, and to conduct mock product
recalls for third-party audits.
27
VITA -PAKT
CITRUS
PRODUCTS
CO.
DEMET’S
CANDY
COMPANY
THE SOLUTION
Operations drove the ERP system search and
implementation at Vita-Pakt, says Naugle, who
was project lead with a core team of about half
a dozen employees, including his manager, the
Senior VP Operations, as executive sponsor.
Naugle and his team quickly identified that
“Microsoft Dynamics ERP was the way for us
to go” and they narrowed their search down to
JustFoodERP and another Dynamics based
vendor.
“The main thing for us was the level of
relationship that JustFoodERP has with
Microsoft… how the JustFoodERP system is
completely integrated and compatible with
Microsoft now and down the road,” says Naugle.
“As well, we decided that the functionality in
JustFoodERP fits us better than the other ERP
vendors.”
Vita-Pakt representatives attended the 2010
JustFoodERP User Event in Dallas, TX, which
included plant tour of CF Chefs, a JustFoodERP
customer. Naugle and his coworkers were
impressed by seeing JustFoodERP in action and
how it was benefiting another food processor.
To start their ERP project, Vita-Pakt ran a test
environment of JustFoodERP – from production
through purchasing, including the quality
management module and the reporting module
– for six months at their Lindsay, CA plant before
rolling out the full implementation across all their
company’s locations.
THE BENEFITS
The full JustFoodERP
implementation was
rolled out across four
manufacturing
locationsin different
parts of California.
Microsoft Dynamics
CRM integrates with
JustFoodERP so they
can push a button and
within seconds,
automated emails go to
thousands of customers
contained in the contacts
management side of
CRM, making a huge
difference in item
traceability and recalls.
Robert Naugle,
Plant Manager,
Vita-Pakt Citrus Products Co.
Naugle says Vita-Pakt has seen increased
efficiencies and productivity, resulting in cost
savings, since the go-live date of their JustFoodERP
system. “We use the item trace functionality quite a
bit for recall purposes and for ongoing information
gathering,” he says.
Vita-Pakt is now working with JustFoodERP
to implement the customer relationship
management (CRM) module. “One of the selling
points of CRM,” says Naugle, “is with the push of
a single button, and within 30 seconds automated
emails and letters are going out to customers
notifying them of recalled items.” When you have
thousands of customers, as Vita-Pakt does, being
able to set up a template within the ERP system
and have it ‘speak’ to the contacts management
side of the CRM system makes a huge difference in
the item trace and recall process.
Among the accomplishments, Vita-Pakt was
the first JustFoodERP customer to go live with
the Role Tailored Client (RTC) feature of Microsoft
Dynamics when it was released in 2010. This feature
is helping users at Vita-Pakt focus on their tasks by
tailoring their application experience to the needs of
their roles at work. “Most of our users input their daily
information in RTC, which has highly customized screens
for each user,” notes Naugle.
28
VITA -PAKT
CITRUS
PRODUCTS
CO.
DEMET’S
CANDY
COMPANY
THE BENEFITS
Naugle says he is also seeing the
benefit of reporting within the
JustFoodERP system. JustFoodERP
staff provided excellent training and
support for this. “I would definitely
recommend JustFoodERP to another
food company,” says Naugle.
“JustFoodERP employees are
knowledgeable and responsive from
pre-sales through to implementation
and customer support… I like that
I have access to the top people at
JustFoodERP.”
THE FUTURE
Vita-Pakt has moved on to implement JF Floor,
the web interface module that extends JustFoodERP functionality through their warehouse and
plant workers’ handheld scanners, forkliftmounted
tablets or any other portable device that accesses
a browser running over a wireless network. “All
our finished products will be containerized,” says
Naugle. “As the goods come off production, on
pallets, they get tracked by container number
using JF Floor.” The payoff, he adds is that “We’ll
get more real-time information on output.”
Vita-Pakt enjoys keeping up to date on JustFoodERP developments, such as the educational
sessions that Naugle and his coworkers attended
at the 2012 JustFoodERP User Event, looking at
the product roadmap and learning more about
reporting, JF Floor and other functionalities that
integrate with
their JustFoodERP system.
“The main thing was the level of
relationship JustFoodERP has
with Microsoft Dynamics – they
are completely integrated,
compatible with Microsoft now
and down the road.”
Robert Naugle,
Plant Manager,
Vita-Pakt Citrus Products Co.
“Obviously there are lots of
ERP choices, but a lot of
those choices look their age.
JustFoodERP and Microsoft
Dynamics provide a user
interface, compelling product
roadmap, and a technology
platform that isn’t represented in other ERP systems. Our
decision to choose JustFoodERP was made looking at our
business model now, five
years, ten years, and beyond.
Paris Ball-Miller, Co-Owner
and President Troyer Foods
Inc. Midwest broadline foodservice and speciality retail
supplier
Robert Naugle,
Plant Manager,
Vita-Pakt Citrus Products Co.
29
WHY
?
JustFoodERP helps food companies lower costs,
improve food safety, and manage customer
compliance. We do this by matching up the best
software technology with the best business
processes.
For more information on
For a complimentary business consultation,
please visit justfooderp.com
please contact us at [email protected]
or call us at 1-866-788-1086