KK Fine Foods (Northhampton, U.K.), one of the largest U.K. manufacturers of frozen convenience foods, has experienced a 54% rise in profits and a 15% drop in product wastage since 2003, following the implementation of the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system from Ross Systems (Atlanta), a division of CDC Software, a subsidiary of CDC Corp. (Atlanta)..
Recently short-listed for a Best of British Manufacturing IT Award for Best ROI measures and benefits from IT in Manufacturing/Business Management, KK Fine Foods produces more than 250 different recipes of frozen meals and 193 live recipes every month for its customers across the U.K. and Europe including TGI Friday's, Pizza Hut, Iceland, Marriott and Whitbread.
Graham Jackson, chairman of KK Fine Foods, comments, "We really have gone from strength to strength since implementing the solution from Ross. The ERP solution underpins our entire organization from finance and sales order processing to production and distribution. We've been able to minimize errors in production and streamline production planning as well as achieve more effective management of our cold storage facility."
Implemented in 2003, the Ross system has given KK Fine Foods a fully integrated and real-time management information tool that allows it to optimize throughput, streamline the business and monitor product profitability in a way that it could not do before. The system also generates an executive level view of the entire business operation and manufacturing processes to give managers a single view of the business, enabling them to make decisions with confidence knowing they are based on current and accurate information.
As well as live management reports, the system also provides real-time stock status reports, supplying information by product, customer, ingredient, location and history, to give end-to-end online visibility of its products. This has helped KK Fine Foods achieve Grade A Food Safety Traceability Accreditation from the Food Standards Agency. They can now identify the availability of raw materials, monitor stock shelf life and react to any sudden change in customer demand dynamically.
"KK Fine Foods now has a completely accurate demand-forecasting system in place via the demand pattern analysis tool and we have total control and visibility of all materials and products throughout the manufacturing process. We've achieved a 54% increase in profitability over the past 3 years and are continuing to experience growth on a massive scale, to the point that we're doubling our production capacity. We have plans to increase our revenue by 200%^ over the next 5 years," Jackson says.
Source: Ross Systems
