As 2022 draws to a close, we at FoodBusiness ERP think it’s the perfect time to look back at the four releases we provided this past year. Each food software release has brought fresh, business-building capabilities to our existing, new and potential customers. In fact, our continuous improvements to our food business software—which is built in Sage X3 and configured by NexTec Group experts—are based on our customers needs and wants.
With this in mind, let’s take a high-level look at what our releases brought to the table in 2022.
2022 R1 Release: Optimizing Production and Inventory Management Capabilities
Prior to our 2022 R1 release, customers already enjoyed many distribution and inventory and production management capabilities. These capabilities consisted of food safety and quality system certification support, full bi-directional ingredient/packaging/finished goods traceability, product recall and allergen management, production costing, inventory visibility and accuracy and more.
With 2022 R1, we enabled our customers to go from order to fully packaged delivery in a single function. In addition to a reduction in data entry duties, customers were able to save time while maintaining full lot traceability. We also added further scanning capabilities and optimized inventory management and production floor capabilities.
Other scan and pack enhancements included in 2022 R1 included:
- Order based scan and pack, allowing customers to pick specific inventory to ship.
- Delivery based scan and pack, allowing customers to then pack the products that were picked.
- GS1-128 barcode scan support
- Automatic packing so products will automatically be packed without being scanned.
- Mouse-less operations, enabling customers to close and confirm a package by scanning certain barcodes.
- Pick ticket printing directly from a sales order.
2022 R2 Release: Batching, Picking and Staging, Issue Materials, Locking Component and Stock Quality Audit Improvements
In our second release of the year, we focused our attention on solving common pain points shared by food businesses across the globe. One pain point is the challenge many food manufacturers face when they lack the space or equipment to manage larger production orders. To help alleviate this problem, we added a production batch feature that allows customers to batch their work orders instead of breaking them into smaller sizes. The result is improved operations and decreased overhead.
Another pain point is the inefficient and error-prone process of picking and staging materials in advance of production. With 2022 R2, customers can now utilize “reusable” or “on the fly” containers, select material and allocate to staging location, use enhanced shop paper to facilitate staging, issue material with one click and choose an override option if a picking issue is detected.
With the introduction of the locking component feature in 2022 R2, we were able to help customers adjust their product formulation quickly and easily without affecting quality or quantity through providing an option that allows them to adjust other ingredients and reassess the expected production quantity when a change occurs. And finally, 2022 R2 enhanced our already powerful quality, audit and security management features that support compliance SQF, BRCGS, FSMA, GMP, HACCP and HARPC requirements and standards. These enhancements included grouping stock audits by lot, product or document as well as providing multiple workflow options.
2022 R3 Release: Certificate of Analysis (COA) Functionality
Food businesses rely on food manufacturing software to provide the quality-focused features they need to audit their products, including the required supplier and expiration documentation. Our 2022 R3 release offered advanced Certificate of Analysis (COA) features supporting deliveries and receipts.
For example, the new COA functionality provides multiple controls for managing and controlling the COA content (e.g., document specific test descriptions, group similar tests, omit a test/result, include testing method and display results based on a numeric test result). When dealing with specific customer COA requests, customers have configuration tools that help provide the test and verbiage they desire. Additionally, our third release aided food businesses by providing:
- Lot inheritance logic for tracing a finished product back to the source batch that was tested, allowing customers to structure formulas or BOMs as needed while not negatively affecting COA processing.
- A simulated COA document option at a click of a button, giving real-time feedback and set-up validation.
- Multiple options for printing a COA document.
And if COA results are present during a purchase of products for resale or for use in a company’s own production process, FoodBusiness ERP’s Pre-Receipt COA feature simplifies the receipt process by allowing an inspection that bypasses the hold process.
2022 R4 Release: Retains and Reference Sample Management and Demand Management and Forecasting Features
Finally, our latest release—2022 R4—offers two new features: Retains and Reference Sample Management and Demand Management and Forecasting. The features take simple concepts that are challenging to implement and provide the simplified functionality needed to support the process. And the functionality is a fully integrated aspect of our food manufacturing software.
With Retains and Sample Management, customers can save and store samples, efficiently examine current and past production activity, enjoy manual and/or automated audit and test generation capabilities, group samples through group assignment functionality, isolate samples, convert samples to stock zero value, pull samples from work in progress, automatically calculating retention dates and more. And we’ve established a Sample Workbench that allows you to manage all sample activity in one place, making the new feature simple to set up, manage, and use.
And with Demand Management and Forecasting, we expanded our forecasting functionality so that customers can use updated, accurate data to examine the past and adjust for the future. Now, they can utilize advanced and simple calculation methods to determine trends and forecasts, calculate individual product SKU in real time (with results on a single screen), calculate batches of products or SKUs weekly or monthly, allow for manual updates to a forecast, and layer market intelligence into the forecast for exceptions.
Looking Forward to 2023 with FoodBusiness ERP
FoodBusiness ERP is dedicated to strengthening our food software—one release at a time—and providing exceptional value to our customers. Their insights into what is and is not working helps us determine our next steps, and we hope every customer continues to share their thoughts with us as we look forward to an exciting 2023.
For any food manufacturing business searching for a solution purpose built for the food and beverage industry that was created based on decades of industry experience, then look no further than FoodBusiness ERP. Our experts understand the challenges of today (and tomorrow), and we’ll help food businesses streamline their daily operations, improve efficiency and lower costs.
To learn more, contact us today. We’d love to chat.