Company News

Annesley, Notthinghamshire

Columbus and Emydex Technology are proud to announce their partnership for excellence in the Meat and Fish industries. Two of the leading Food industry solution specialists have joined forces to integrate their products, offering a total plant solution pre-configured for the red meat, poultry and fish Industries.

Emydex software is designed to manage Food production processes from door to door, from arrival of animals to the abattoir, through kill line, boning hall, warehousing and dispatch. Columbus, with deep engagement in the food industry, build targeted solution sets on top of the reliable Microsoft Dynamics AX platform.

The blended solution, developed jointly by Columbus and Emydex, allows for 2-way integration between Emydex and Dynamics AX, linking the shop-floor seamlessly to the rest of the organization without a glitch.

Typically smaller to medium sizes food processors have enquired after such standardised systems. The Emydex Standard Systems (ESS) project takes all the Emydex experience and know-how gained in designing and deploying production management systems for our customers over the past 10 years, to produce our standard versions of each essential component within in a typical end-to-end food production process from Intake, through Into-Production, Packing, Labelling, Order Picking and Dispatch

Mary Hunter, MD of Columbus UK, states: ‘I am excited about this new solution, it highlights our commitment to the meat industry and has many benefits for key customers such as the Kepak Group. The integration to Emydex fits perfectly in Columbus’ vertical strategy and enhances our position as a total Food solution provider, supporting best of breed solutions’.

David Mcmahon, MD of Emydex, agrees: ‘After 10 years of continuous product development and finetuning, our tailored software solutions have a significant depth and breadth of functionality developed specifically for the red meat, poultry and fish industries. Our customers can now easily combine this with the power of Dynamics AX. By partnering with a global industry focused consultancy like Columbus, we know we have joined forces with a company that can offer a low risk implementation to the specialised food processing industries.’

About Columbus

Columbus is an international consultancy serving customers worldwide. We are experts in developing and providing business applications to the retail, food and manufacturing industries. We’ve proved this through 20 years of experience with more than 6,000 successful business cases. Columbus has offices and partners all around the world.

For more information please contact Mary Hunter (UK) on +44(0)1623 72 99 77 or emailmhun@columbusglobal.com.

About Emydex

Emydex is the leading provider of Production Management software systems to Meat & Fish producers in Ireland and the UK, counting 6 of the top 10 Meat processor groups in Ireland as Customers. Today Emydex’s factory floor data capture, production reporting and traceability systems are running on over 600 Industrial PC terminals, as well as 500 scanning terminals, in over Food 50 production sites located across Ireland, the UK and France.

Emydex’s latest customer satisfaction survey conducted during April 2013 shows all time high scores across all metrics measured. Feedback is received from at least one person from every live customer, and at least 2 people within our larger group customers. In all cases the people surveyed are in Emydex-facing roles, and deal with Emydex staff on a regular basis. The latest survey includes feedback from 26 people working for Emydex customers, and covers customer satisfaction with:

1. Quality of the system – performance, usability, bug free etc.
2. Execution Timeliness – adherence to agreed project deadlines and milestones
3. Meeting Expectations (how did we measure up at the end versus expectations at the start?)
4. Quality of Customer Support
5. Satisfaction with your Lead Programmer (how happy are you with your lead programmer?)
6. Recommendation – Likelihood of recommending Emydex to a colleague or friend
7. Overall Satisfaction

A summary of the scores received across all customers is listed below. In the case of all 6 questions, these scores are higher in each instance than scores and feedback received in our last survey conducted in October 2012

Of particular importance is the improvement, in the opinion of our customers with the Overall Quality of the Emydex software system, that has seen satisfaction grow steadily over the past 2 years from a 79% satisfaction rating in October 2011 to a rating of 86% in April 2013.

This may be in part explained by the fact that Emydex now has a separate product development team dedicated to the further development and improvement of the core software platform and modules.

The team have since February 2013 moved to a separate office to give the team ‘head-space’ and also to facilitate growth in both the Project Implementation and Customer Support Teams in Unit 10.

Quality of Solution (usability, Speed, Performance, Bug Free etc.)

Satisfaction levels with Software Quality

Emydex Product Development Team

The knock-on effect of improvement in overall software quality, is that satisfaction with our Customer Supportteam has also risen in line, most likely as a result of a combination of less bugs being reported in the software, and more staff being added to the Emydex support team that now stands at five full-time dedicated people, soon to be six. One customer comment to highlight came from Simon Fletcher in Moy Park Ballymena, who said “Emydex provide an excellent Product and an excellent service. I wish all our Suppliers/Support operated with the same ethos and work ethic”.

Quality of Customer Support

Satisfaction levels with Customer Support

Emydex Customer Support Team

The last metric to highlight relates to Emydex Customer satisfaction levels with their lead programmer, the main software developer tasked with tailoring an Emydex solution to match each customer’s specific business requirements exactly. With Customer Satisfaction with their lead programmer now standing at an 87% satisfaction rating, this demonstrates the level of knowledge our delivery team has of food processing industries, as well as their technical skill levels and abilities.

Satisfaction with Lead Programmer

Emydex Project Delivery Team

Danny O’Hanlon is a recent new joiner to the Emydex Implementation team managed by Technical Manager, Daniel Simonavicius. Danny holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from the National University of Ireland, as well as a Masters in Engineering, Computer Science & Communications from the University of Limerick.

Prior to joining Emydex, Danny worked for 6 years as the sole IT person in McCarrens, a leading Irish Pork primal processing plant that employs over 200 people. Danny’s role covered management of all IT systems in addition to designing and developing software systems needed for various operational requirements including Purchasing, Goods-In and Production systems such as:

• Weighbridge in-take/Lairage system
• Kill Line grading system
• Cut-up system recording all primal weights
• Real-time yield system
• Packaging Stock Control scanning system
• Traceability system
• Label production to customer requirements

Prior to working in McCarrens, Danny worked as an IT Consultant with the Irish Companies Registration Office (CRO), and as a Software Engineer in Trintech Technologies. He has over 12 years work experience.

“Danny is the type of person we are always on the lookout for in Emydex to further expand our existing team of highly experienced programmers, all whom have an in-depth knowledge of the workings of the food processing industries. There is a steep learning curve, and a lot of Industry specific knowledge required to be able to competently design and deliver tailored software solutions to our customers. Anyone with this level of relevant experience and training is always a very welcome addition to the team”, said David McMahon, Emydex CEO.

Updated August 2013

Emma Flynn

Emma Flynn joined Emydex in March 2013 in the role of Office Manager. Emma has a Bachelor of Business Studies from Dublin City University and a Postgraduate Diploma in Events Management from the Fitzwilliam Institute. Prior to joining Emydex, Emma worked as Alumni Relations Officer in DCU for almost 7 years, where she was responsible for managing the Alumni Relations Programme and worked at a senior administrative level. As part of her role in managing Emydex’s offices, Emma is also involved in assisting the Support Team on a daily basis, and supported the company CEO on Sales & Marketing as well as HR activities.

Patricia Ramos

Patricia Ramos joined Emydex in August 2013 as an Application Support Developer working on the Emydex customer support team. Patricia holds a Degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Burgos, and a number of Training Certifications including SQL. and .Net Framework. Prior to joining Emydex, Patricia worked for 6 years as an analyst software developer in the banking sector in Spain.