These days, the food & beverage industry is going through quick change, with customer demand and new trends making extensive difficulties for manufacturers. As compel keeps on mounting from consumers and wholesalers or distributors like grocery stores and general stores or supermarkets alike, this shift is making it clear in Food Manufacturing Business’ supply chains and logistics day to day operations. And, any company that wants to survive, must keep up.
Recommended: Learn more about our ERP solution, Food & Beverage for Dynamics 365 Business Central.
Let’s find out what are the challenges in the Food Manufacturing Business.
Improper traceability
Having the option to track products through each phase of the supply chain has become a must in the Food Manufacturing Business. It is a step that should be taken to avoid a lack of transparency and unnecessary risk of weakened customers’ trust or even legal issues. In any case, above all, it’s a fundamental step in the direction of safety and compliance with industry regulations like GMP, HAACP, etc. Any organization that experiences such difficulties while tracking its items is opening itself to problems in the future.
Lack of safety
As customers become more cognizant about the products they purchase, the tension on manufacturers to produce and distribute safe high-quality finished products has become higher than ever. What’s more, there are a lot of variables that can think twice about the safety of an F&B product. For example, how the ingredients have been stored? how it has been produced? And if there’s any delay in its transportation.
Just in case if there’s any problem with any item, the manufacturer must go through an expensive and complicated product review that can cause substantial damage to the brand’s repo. What’s more, if the manufacturer hasn’t properly followed protocol during the production phase, discovering the batches across the distribution network can prove a nearly impossible task.
Communication Inefficiency
Most food & beverage manufacturers work globally setting. This prompts different gatherings of clients to be engaged within the supply chain without necessarily being directly connected with one another. Therefore, data can become fragmented and communication may suffer, leading to inefficiency or even errors. It’s become more important especially how easy it is to achieve nowadays. For any food & beverage company to keep a sufficient level of communication without it becoming tangled.
Costs Rising
The costs included in a food supply chain are by no means insignificant. Some of the major expenses are related to energy and fuel, manpower, logistics, investments in new technology, etc. However, some variance to a great extent isn’t anything strange, a lasting trend that raises your costs for no apparent reason means that your organization probably won’t oversee them in the most effective manner possible.
Lack of Inventory Management
Inefficient stock management is an indication of issues in the supply chain. There’s a fine balance that should be accomplished when it comes to inventory. Having an excess inventory may lead to spoiled products that go to waste and become a loss. Also, having too little may mean that you can’t fulfill customer’s demands, and what does that lead to? Loss of money. Efficient supply management provides real-time visibility into your inventory and leads to your company producing and storing exactly the correct amount at right time.
Does any of the above challenges sound familiar to your business organization?
When you know what challenges your company facing to carry out successful food & beverage manufacturing, and distribution to your ongoing success. With a native WMS program, you gain business-wide traceability, employee accountability, and real-time speed and responsiveness.
Through scan guns and barcodes, you can move from pen and paper to a digital WMS environment that eliminates the re-keying of data and the unavoidable human entry error that accompanies it. There are many more differences that fully define an ERP hosting model and should be taken into consideration before deciding what deployment option is best for your business.
The benefits of a comprehensive WMS include:
- Reduced fulfillment time
- Increased inventory accuracy
- Improved customer service
- Greater space utilization
- Increased warehouse productivity
- Reduced labor cost
Whereas integrating warehouse management with ERP is not only the next logical step for growing companies, it is a matter of survival and a certified best practice. Integrating the two services is a necessity for companies that wish to scale with a growing business. Also, the integration of WMS – Advanced Warehouse Management System with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central can help your warehouse to use technology to the utmost degree, which will allow you to focus on improving processes and speeding up shipments and other warehouse operations and activities as well.
For more information about MetaWMS and a tailored demonstration contact us at MetaOption.