Live Data Increases Potato Packer's Efficiency

UK Potato supplier Naturally Best will use the Tropos system from SSI to help manage and control its expanding business in 2006 and beyond.

UK Potato supplier Naturally Best will use the Tropos system from SSI to help manage and control its expanding business in 2006 and beyond.

Tropos will provide suppliers and customers with a live view of production and delivery, which will assist Naturally Best in keeping the business on track, said SSI.

Based in Boston, Lincolnshire, Naturally Best supplys the UK's supermarket chains.

Mainly through the popularity of its Vivaldi potato, sales have risen between 2001 and 2004, averaging over 60 per cent a year.

In 2005, Naturally Best won a contract from Sainsbury's, and the company responded with investments in new plant and equipment for grading and packaging.

In addition the company is experiencing growth in supplying hotels and restaurants, which want to feature Vivaldi potatoes on their menus.

To complement that investment and manage its growing business volumes, Naturally Best needed to have an integrated view of sales, supply, production, administration and delivery performance.

The company desired to have live information to satisfy stringent customer demands and to make sure it is operating efficiently and profitably.

According to Naturally Best's company secretary, Mike Pledger: "Our existing ERP system was based on 'after the event' reporting, which meant that before we could view meaningful information, we needed to complete paper work using the data collected.

That was simply not good enough for the kind of operation we have become." SSI helped define the detailed requirements and after evaluation, Naturally Best committed to the GBP300,000 Tropos software.

The company will use the full scope of Tropos when the system is implemented at its Kirton Holme site during this year.

Tropos will provide better traceability of potato stocks, from the pre-graded stage through the full process to customer packs.

That will enable Naturally Best to become more flexible in planning future pack formats, said SSI.

It will also improve potato classification and grading - a key requirement to meeting the precise customer specifications.

The system will also help to combat wastage, which is a critical requirement as the company's order books grow.

"Increases in production mean you have to stay on top of the business more than ever," said Mike Pledger.

"Any errors have more costly consequences." Controlling potato stock and supplier deliveries is also becoming critical as customer ordering and fulfilment becomes increasingly 'just in time'.

"When we receive an order we have to create the product in the next 14 to 15 hours and ship it out on vehicles, so we need to have tight control over our stock and the deliveries from suppliers," Pledger added.

One of the benefits of Tropos, according to Mike Pledger, will be the linking of processes right back to the field and all the way through to the consumer.

Tropos will enable Naturally Best's customers and suppliers to monitor the production process through to delivery.

"Customers will be able to see their loads being packed and their deliveries scheduled, and growers will be able to watch their potatoes go down the line," he commented.

Mike Pledger said: "We selected Trospos because it just kept overcoming the hurdles we put in front of it.

We became increasingly confident during the evaluation period that it could do everything we wanted." Naturally Best was also impressed with the SSI team.

Pledger continued: "We could tell the SSI people knew what they were talking about.

Those we have met have been in the company a long time and we sensed they were committed to being there in the future.

It was also clear there was strength in depth.

The whole team contributed.

They were not just relying on one systems designer or technical person." The Naturally Best management team was taken to two of SSI's customers to see Tropos in action.

That strengthened the conviction that system was the right choice.

Mike Pledger explained: "The people we went to see closely modelled what we were trying to do.

It made us feel we were not attempting anything that Tropos had not done before." SSI Managing Director, Trevor Lewis said: "We are very proud that Naturally Best have chosen the Trospos system.

The company has shown by its success that it consistently makes the right business decisions.".

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