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Emydex Lamb Kill Line system’s now live in Kepak plants

21st March 2011

Emydex’s Lamb Kill Line system was implemented in Kepak’s Hacketstown Lamb slaughter plant in February 2011. Following on from a go-live of the same Lamb kill line system In Kepak Athleague in December 2010, this latest system go-live marks the completion of Emydex’s upgrade to all of Kepak’s kill lines in Ireland with six kill lines now running on Emydex, four of which are beef. This leaves only the Beef and Lamb kill lines in Kepak’s Wakefield plant in the UK due for completion in August 2011.

Similar to the Emydex Beef system, the Lamb kill line system allows for online real-time validation of a farmer’s status within Bord Bia’s Lamb Quality Assurance Scheme. This operates at Lamb lot level giving instant feedback as to whether Lamb farmers qualify for the Bord Bia quality assurance scheme or not.

The capacity also exists with the Emydex system for online integration to the Department of Agriculture’s AIMS system for notifying DAFF of animal movements to slaughter factory and kill. Kepak are using the AIMS system for reporting Beef movements in all of its beef kill plants.

Features of the Emydex Lamb kill line system include:

High Speed Lamb Processing
Automatic destination code assignment
Operator friendly running totals
Tally roll printing
Automatic switching to next lot when current log complete on Ear tag station (Sequencer)
Post grading lambs are assigned individual IDS by the system allowing for full traceability on entering boning hall and dispatch

Commenting on the recent Lamb Kill line systems going live, Jim O’Neill, Group IT Manager with the Kepak Group said “it became apparent that our existing Lamb kill line system had approached end of life and additionally any changes required for future advancements would be difficult to undertake. Accompany this with further enhancements at both the Lairage stage (AIM’s and Bord Bia checks) and floor based data collection terminals (QC based activity) as well as the fact we use Emydex now door-to-door it became an easy decision to make.”

O’Neill added “On ‘go-live’ everything went smoothly in both Athleague and Hacketstown and I personally could not ask for more on this. The added fact that data is now more accessible / structured for reporting as well as having the full support of Emydex who understand the meat business is a huge help for any future regulatory changes or internal customisation and it has proven an extremely successful rollout for Kepak on not just the lamb but also the beef implementations to date.”

Kepak gets the Emydex Treatment

2nd September 2010

Emydex technology was formed over six years ago with the aim of designing and developing data capture and production management software for the food industry based on open technologies. Emydex’s founders spotted a gap in the market place, as at that time the majority of available systems were unreliable, out-dated and tied to specific hardware suppliers.

Roll on six years and today Emydex software is in daily operational usage in over 30 plants owned by some of the largest single and multi-site food processors in Ireland and the UK, such as Dawn Meats, Dunbia the Kepak Group and O’Kane poultry.

Greater Control

Kepak’s journey with Emydex began in 2007. “Previous to Emydex, we had a number of separate in-house systems that weren’t integrated, so it was difficult to gain a true real time view of production. The Emydex platform gives us greater control of our production, better visibility of data, and a better understanding of the data that is critical to drive our business including Yields and Traceability,” says Jim O’Neill, group IT manager with the Kepak Group.

Today Emydex is running end to end in Kepak’s beef slaughter and processing plants in Clonee, Kilbeggan, Hacketstown, Athleague, Cork and Ballymahon. Emydex’s Lamb kill lines are scheduled to go live in Kepak’s Hacketstown and Athleague plants over the next few weeks. “We’re currently working on a project to complete our last Emydex project in Ireland, Cork Retail. We’ll also be looking at our Wakefield plant in the UK, and hope to have the implementation well advanced by year end,” says Jim O’Neill.

“What’s different about Emydex is you’re working with people who understand the demands of the food industry very well. Sometimes end users don’t always know what they want, Emydex have the ability to visualise an idea, without knowing the final solution, and see it through to completion” Industry knowledge coupled with a flexible approach to development allows for the delivery of solutions that adapt to suit customer business processes rather than the other way around. Jim O’Neill continues: “Our previous production management system was developed in-house. For Emydex to deliver a system to Kepak that offers the same level of flexibility, whilst at the same time being a totally reliable and robust solution, is testimony to how well Emydex software has been developed and deployed.”

Unique Feature

One of the unique features of the Emydex system is the Carcass management module. This incorporates a Carcass Splitting engine used to break down and track quarters, and maintain stock in terms of derived weights. “Carcass management gives customers the ability to maintain accurate carcass stocks from time of kill to through boning and dispatch,” Jim O’Neill points out.

Another big win for Kepak was the introduction of a Work Order control process that sits over the whole production process.“Production Work orders are generated in Emydex and issued to the floor so that operators can no longer process without an order on system – a big gain for us,” he explains. The notion of incorporating Work Order control to manage production is an optional feature of the system.

Warehouse Management

“Emydex’s Warehouse management system is the single biggest bonus to Kepak. We are a fast moving business with a high volume of stock movements. With Emydex we now have complete warehouse control and real time stocks down to scan level, without having to compromise on functionality,” adds O’Neill. This functionality includes real time validation at point of scanning an order, where the system warns operators of any discrepancies that arise during order picking, allowing them to take corrective action.

The Kepak group IT manager concludes: “The best way to sum up Kepak’s experience with Emydex is to say that Kepak have experienced operators and supervisors who are 20 years with the company, who with 15 minutes of training are not only competently using the Emydex system every day, but more importantly openly acknowledge how essential and valuable the Emydex system is in assisting them with their day to day tasks.”

Food & Drink Business Europe, August/September 2010

For more information on the Emydex system click here or contact Emydex on +353 1 8855990

Dawn Pork & Bacon Weigh Bridge system goes live

14th December 2009

Dawn Pork & Bacon, Waterford, Ireland recently upgraded to the latest version of the Emydex iWAMS platform, version 3.2, giving Dawn P&B enhanced functionality around dynamic reporting and data grids, in addition to much improved system processing speeds. A new automatic scanning system introduced allows boxes to be scanned into stock automatically improving productivity at the plant.

As part of the upgrade Dawn also switched over from use of their existing Sales Order processing system to the Emydex SO system, and now have much greater visibility of their Yields through delivery of a full set of Yield reports specifically customised for Dawn Pork & Bacon’s requirements. In tandem with this upgrade, Emydex also developed a new Weighbridge system for Dawn to manage truck deliveries to the site. Using the new Weighbridge system Dawn can verify dispatch weights against weights at the bridge, eliminating potentially costly mistakes.

Commenting on the upgrade project, Alan Doocey, IT project manager with Dawn Pork & Bacon said

“we’re now a long way from where we were a few years ago when we were running on a previous system that was outdated, expensive to run and not receptive to making changes to suit our changing business. We chose to replace Multiflex with the Emydex system for its ease of use, flexibility to make system changes, and integrate with any type of hardware or third party systems. I’m extremely pleased we made that decision”.
For more information on the Emydex kill line system click here or contact Emydex on +353 1 8855990

Dawn’s Highland Meats plant in Scotland goes live

20th November 2009

Following the successful roll-out of the Emydex software platform to Dawn Meat’s processing plants in Grannagh, Rathdowney and Charleville In Ireland, Emydex went live in Dawn’s Highland Meats plant in Scotland last week. Highland Meats are a major supplier of prime Scottish beef to the marketplace and operate a state-of-the-art abattoir and deboning facility purpose built in 1995.

Commenting on the launch Martin Curran, Group Factory Systems Manager with Dawn Meats said “it’s a credit to the joint Emydex/Dawn team that we are now in a position where with adequate planning, Emydex module roll-outs out can be completed within a short space of time without any interruption to production. As Emydex is hardware independent we were able to use existing indicators and printers thus saving on cost. New touchscreen PC’s of our choice were installed to run the Emydex Factory Floor applications

James Grennan, Emydex CTO. “The software roll-out took place in tandem with a complete re-vamp of hardware.” This first phase of the Highlands implementation focussed on the roll-out of the Emydex Carcass Management module with full integration to Highland’s existing Kill line system. Emydex Carcass management includes carcass modelling which allows for multiple splitting and de-boning scenarios, full stock management, carcass rebuilding, traceability, and carcass pricing.

Shane Slattery, IT Director with Dawn Meats Group said “Emydex is a central pillar of our strategic I.T. plan going forward, and our goal now is to concentrate on completing the roll-out of Emydex to our primary processing sites by year end. This plan may see aggressive, but we believe that it is achievable on account of the inherent flexibility of the core Emydex product to handle any differences in the business processes required in our disparate sites”.
For more information on the Emydex kill line system click here or contact Emydex on +353 1 8855990

Kepak Beef Kill-line goes live

28th September 2009

Kepak

Kepak Group went live with Emydex Technology’s Beef Kill Line software system at their Beef processing plant in Clonee this morning. After successfully running the Emydex kill line module in a test environment in Clonee for two weeks, the system was switched on and tested in ‘live’ mode over the weekend ready for Monday morning Beef processing.

“The Kepak and Emydex team worked very hard over the weekend to ensure everything went smoothly. Despite one or two small glitches, everything has gone exceptionally well this morning. Proof that a proper approach to testing does work” said Robbie Grogan, Finance Director, Kepak Group.

Beginning with Lairage, Kepak can now book animals onto the Emydex system, creating animal ‘lots’ with real time linkages to both the Irish Department of Agriculture’s AIM system (Animal Identification and Movement), as well as the Beef Quality Assurance system.

From Lairage the Animals then enter Kepak’s Line Sequencer where carcass numbers are issued, and brain sampling data is captured. The system then links to the Grading station where animal weight and grading information is collected.

“One of the best features of the Emydex kill line system, is that we now have automatic destination codes. We didn’t have that option before” said Tom Mulligan, Group Business Systems Manager with Kepak.

James Grennan, Technical Director with Emydex Technology said “ the kill line going live completes the full picture, as the Emydex platform now supports Kepak’s beef processing truly from end-to-end. From the reception of animals in Lairage, through to Carcass management, In-boning, Warehousing and Dispatch. The work doesn’t stop here however, as we next move on to roll-out our Lamb kill line system for Kepak’s lamb processing factory in Athleague”.

Emydex Lamb Kill Line system’s now live in Kepak plants

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