FDBusiness.com

Tuesday, September 06, 2011 by Systems Integration

SI’s CEO, Rob Stephens, has just returned to the UK following his participation at a food traceability and value chain management workshop held in Toronto, Canada. The seminar was sponsored by the George Morris Centre, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC). It focused on analysing experiences from the UK and elsewhere to illustrate the importance of businesses using information systems to increase their long term competitive advantage.

Rob was invited to speak by Martin Gooch, director of the Value Chain Management Centre. His presentation focused on what has driven traceability in Britain and how businesses have been able to improve profitability by using this information to identify and rectify inefficiencies, increasing the effectiveness of their operations.

“It was an honour to work with such important Canadian initiatives, as well as the people involved in the value chain,” says Rob Stephens. “My key message to delegates was that traceability is simply the result of effective business management and how in order to become efficient, firms need to ensure that they are managing the true cause of problems, not just the symptoms.”

“Business schools and universities are good at teaching managers to focus their efforts on being efficient within their own business,” added Martin Gooch. “However, we believe that the best way to create a unique and defensible value proposition is by managing the value chain in relation to the demands of a specific segment of the consumer market. Overall, the food industry has been slow to recognise the competitive advantages that can be realised through consciously managing businesses in this manner. Rob shared lessons learned from assisting UK businesses to make this transition.”

The Value Chain Management Centre is dedicated to researching value chain issues and opportunities, and providing international assistance to businesses seeking to implement value chain initiatives. It is a subsidiary of the George Morris Centre, Canada’s independent agri-products think tank. Founded in 1990, the George Morris Centre is a Canada-wide, not-for-profit charitable organization. It is dedicated to provoking informed dialogue on policies and issues and fostering excellence in the agri-products sector.

Systems Integration is a leading supplier of software and hardware for the food processing industry. The company doesn’t work with businesses in any other sector and is the sole provider of Integreater® worldwide, supplying customers in the UK, the US and Canada.

Integreater is an enterprise manufacturing execution system, also known as an e-MES. It might sound complicated, but has actually been designed to make life a lot easier for food processing businesses.

The unique solution works by ensuring that businesses have the visibility to achieve greater accuracy, efficiency and traceability. It effectively holds a magnifying glass up to the processing cycle, so that management can see exactly what’s going on and identify where they need to make improvements.

Integreater is a complete software and hardware system, but its modular design means that businesses can address particular issues or trial the solution in specific areas before investing in the entire system. Featuring solutions to a wide range of production problems, it’s easy for everyone to use – from staff on the factory floor, right up to the boardroom.

Management identify what data they want to measure and SI configure the e-MES to do all the hard work. It will then provide operators with the information they need, when they need it, in a way they’ll understand.

Integreater is a flexible solution that has been designed to adapt as a business grows, customer demands change and legislation gets tougher.