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Emydex Update from Down Under

Feb 2023

2023 is shaping up to be a busy year for Emydex in this part of the world (Australasia), with the roll-out of Beef & Pork processing systems in New Zealand, several animal payments systems, as well as a first-time implementation of an export sales management system for a large feed lotting customer in Australia

 

Beef Processing System

Emydex Team NZ is working with one of our group beef processing customers to roll out their ‘group standard’ Emydex slaughter floor solution, to all their other beef plants in New Zealand over the next nine months. In addition, a second Emydex team is busy commissioning an Emydex solution for their first secondary butchery (boning) room. To meet this ambitious target, our 15-person strong Emydex team working in New Zealand and Australia will support both projects.

Animal Payments System

Also, in the first quarter of this year, another Emydex meat processor in New Zealand will go live with an Emydex Manufacturing Execution System (MES) for their pork processing plant, as well as commission our newly updated Central Animal Payments System (CAPS). Being multi-species in its design, it will be possible to quickly roll out this Payments system to the other divisions within the company once the pork plant goes live.

Export Sales Management System

Crossing the Tasman Sea, in Australia Emydex will commission a new Export Sales Management and Central Animal Payments System (CAPS) for beef payments for a new Emydex customer in Queensland, which is Australia’s largest privately-owned beef cattle lot feeding company.  This new customer does not own any processing facilities directly, so their entire marketing and inventory management system is managed via data sent from third-party toll processors and logistics companies. The company expects to see a marked improvement in the efficiency of sales activities as well as providing visibility and traceability of their inventory from production plant to customer. Emydex will provide a strong and flexible platform to support the raid growth planned for this year.

Emerging Trends

Emydex are seeing more integration of labour-saving systems with the surfacing of data not traditionally made available to support the production staff processes. This includes data from items such as refrigeration, X-ray carcase grading systems, automated storage and retrieval units, stunning data on the kill floor, IoT devices etc. All of this is collected via a module known as the Data Communications Interface (DCI) module in the Emydex MES, and is integrated and used to support the manufacturing process and is surfaced by the MES via the inbuilt Emydex Business Intelligence (BI) reporting tool. This functionality supports the implementation of Industry 4.0 to provide a ‘whole of life’ view of the production process and to identify efficiencies and compliance issues within the production systems.

CEO Visit

Emydex Australasia is delighted to welcome our group CEO, David McMahon, back to these shores after an absence of several years due to Covid. Dave will be visiting existing customers in Western Australia, Victoria, NSW, and Queensland as well as North and South islands in New Zealand. In addition, meeting up with Emydex staff dotted across both countries, many working remotely from home, hired during the pandemic. Dave is also scheduled to meet several new companies interested in learning more about Emydex. If any readers of this newsletter are interested in learning more about Emydex or even catching up on some of the new directions and processes that are emerging in Europe, we would be more than happy to arrange a meeting whilst he is here. Please reach out to ian.carson@emydex.com. 

Lamb Processing System

As the year progresses, another Emydex customer will be moving into the implementation phase of their Emydex lamb processing system, rolling out to their two Australian-based sheep processing plants in WA and NSW. Other Emydex customers will continue to implement new modules to support their existing processes whether they be web portals for farmer livestock bookings and feedback, automated chiller sortation, integration to automated labelling systems or the integration of order and stock management functions in Emydex to automated storage and retrieval systems. All these projects will deliver considerable labour savings, which considering the current labour shortages in the industry, will bring rapid payback and efficiencies to those who are embarked upon these projects.

For any information on any of the projects outlined above, please email sales@emydex.com for more information.

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Ensuring Quality & Compliance Across Four Continents

Emydex recently completed the upgrade of its Electronic Quality Management System (EQMS) to the latest Version 6 of the Emydex software suite.

 

A new product development project that started in 2018, working in conjunction with some of the largest food processors in Ireland and the UK who helped with system design, testing, and validation, the Electronic Quality Management System first went live with an Emydex customer, MeatCo Namibia, in late 2019.

Roll-on five years and the Quality Management System is today operating in over twenty meat, fish, and food processing plants around the world, including Emydex customers in Ireland, the UK, Canada, Namibia and South Africa.

One early-stage customer who adopted the Quality system and implemented it in their six Irish beef primal processing plants is currently extending their Emydex QMS roll-out to all their UK meat processing plants, with three UK plants live, another two currently undergoing commissioning, and a further seven to be completed by the end of 2023. In total over twenty plants will be running the Emydex quality management system, split across two country divisions.

This is very much at the core of the system i.e., the ability to centrally manage and control technical and quality data across multiple divisions, geographies, and plants, in a standard and consistent way.

At present, the system is being extended to offer capabilities for Emydex customers to perform Supplier Audits, and development is underway to offer data capture of Quality workflows, surveys, and audits, via a browser-based application running on Android devices, in addition to Windows OS devices.

Other new additions to the Quality system include product specifications & workflow planning.

 

Product Specifications

Product specifications functionality allows the product definition to be used for various checks based on the check being completed. For example, by completing a check on the dimensions of burgers being produced (Formax check) the workflow can be configured to compare operators’ entries against the product’s configured height, width, and weight. Similarly, if a packaging tare check is being completed, a separate workflow can compare the tare values being captured by the operator.

 

Workflow Planning

The workflow planning functionality was developed on the back of Emydex customer requirements to be able to manage preventative maintenance checks in more detail. This allows a super-user to schedule in more granularity based on timings and users who will complete the workflow.

The Emydex quality management system enables Meat, Fish, and Food processors to manage their Food Safety and Quality Assurance processes. HACCP and PCP can be managed using the system which supports monitoring within the factory, such as Critical Control Points (CCP) and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP’s). In addition, the application includes a document management system where key documents can be uploaded and version controlled, meaning that operators in the factory are always accessing the latest approved documents.

 

Commenting on the Quality system roll-out previously, John Coleman, Group Technical Manager with Dawn Meats said

The result is that resources have been freed up, saving cost. Less paperwork, collection is instant, no errors, less time, no printing, archive space has been freed up, we have instant and easy retrieval of documents – everything has improved and is more accurate.

We got what we wanted which is improved collection, visibility, and use of our data. That instant visibility means we have real-time situation reports. The tangible savings are obvious – less paper and less ink, for example. The less obvious savings are evident too – less time and effort, fewer mistakes and corrections, reduced hold-ups, etc. I can see if people are making the required quality checks and if they are making them at exactly the right times.

 

If you want to learn more – contact our Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, or North American offices

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Farmer Bookings & Feedback via Livestock Portal

Farmer Bookings & Feedback via Livestock Portal

A new web-based appointment booking and feedback system, reduces paperwork, facilitates easier appointments, and provides transparent feedback to producers and farmers in real-time and accurately

Feb 2022

The supply of livestock from the producer to the meat processor is underpinned by the consistent supply of livestock of the correct quality, correct inspection and optimal grading of these animals while processing in meat processing factories. This is applicable to Beef, Lamb and Pork/hog producers and processors. 

This relationship can now also be built-upon and strengthened with the use of a transparent data transfer from the processor back to the producers via a new Emdyex web-based appointment booking and feedback system. This is achieved via Emydex standard APIs that interact directly with Emydex factory floor MES Solutions running on Kill lines in Abattoirs and Slaughterhouses around the world. 

 

Animal Health Feedback 

Farmers could have the ability to make bookings and appointments, receive Health feedback information, download their financial information, as well as receive their remittances digitally through the Portal, reducing unnecessary paper documentation and helping both sides work towards their sustainability goals.

To facilitate the seamless exchange of producer/Processor data, Emydex has developed a comprehensive suite of secure web APIs. These are designed to simplify the livestock supply from producer to processor and offer the ability to surface kill line and grade data about the supplied livestock back to the producer.

 

Farmer Appointments & Bookings

Authorised agents and suppliers can book appointments to supply their livestock to the processor directly using the API calls embedded in a web portal which can be run via a web browser on a desktop PC or mobile device. This makes the process of selling livestock to the processor far simpler than initiating a booking via other means, eliminating double handling of data and reducing the opportunity for errors in the process.

The Emydex Supplier WebAPI Module consists of several API endpoints that can be called to perform various operations, such as registering new suppliers and livestock delivery appointments directly within Emydex, providing details of any generated payments and retrieving relevant data collected on the Emydex kill line. 

 

Visibility of Grading & Quality Data

This can include the data from the Emydex veterinary inspection stations, grading data and if applicable data from chiller grading processes (MSA). The data retrieval from the kill line via the APIs can be performed at a per delivery or lot level or down to the individual sides of the carcasses forming part of a particular delivery or lot. This offers much greater visibility of the grading and quality data registered to each carcass by the processor and provides comprehensive feedback to the supplier on the condition of the livestock supplied to the factory. How each carcass was graded informs how each carcass was ultimately priced for payment. This can assist the supplier in improving the quality of supplied livestock to meet the producers’ requirements.

By combining the Emydex Kill Line, Central Animal Payments System and Livestock API modules in one wholistic solution, Beef, Lamb and Pork livestock suppliers and processors can achieve a higher level of digital integration when considering the supply of animals to the plant and also receiving performance feedback on the quality of supply and pricing calculations applied to the delivery.

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Emydex CEO Update – 2022 Review

Emydex CEO Update – 2022 Review

Looking back on 2022, last year continued with the trend of challenging global trade conditions with the War in Ukraine fuelling a global energy crisis and rapidly rising inflation.  Not much of a break in the weather post the Pandemic that overshadowed most of 2020 and 2021.

Despite these challenges, Emydex continued to grow and expand in 2022 with double-digit revenue growth over 2021.  The company continued to grow in our key overseas markets, with a team of over fifteen full-time employees now employed across our two subsidiary companies in Australia and New Zealand.

Project work continues at pace with our New Zealand customers, Silver Fern Farms, Wilson Hellaby, as well our newest customer in NZ, Open Ocean, an indigenous mussel processing factory in Opotiki, North Island.

Our Emydex team in Australia was boosted by the arrival of some highly experienced Emydex employees including Jeffrey Macer Wright (Emydex South Africa) as well as Carl Brennan (Emydex Ireland) who both permanently relocated with their families to Australia, to work out of our Emydex office, located in South Brisbane.

Jeffrey and the Emydex Australian team are busy working on system expansions and upgrades with several customers in Australia including Harvey Beef, Junee Lamb, as well as new customers Mort & Co and WAMMCO.

New product developments completed by Emydex Australia include a new Meat Messaging system, developed in conjunction with the Australian Meat Processor Corporation (AMPC).  This new system enables Emydex customers to electronically send a list of GS1 labeled carton records (for export shipments, including export certifications) to a centralised cloud storage system, which virtually eliminates the potential for rejection of cartons due to port mark errors or omissions.

The Emydex team in North America has also grown on foot of some significant new customer wins, including a large multi-plant poultry processor with over ten primal and further processing plants spread across Canada.

Back home in Ireland, the Irish team are also busy on several large customer upgrades to our latest Version 6 software, as well as New Product Developments including:

Android Scanning (XDA)

A new Android-based Emydex application running on handheld scanners used for Warehousing functions including Stock management, Issue to production, QC Hold, Containerising, Palletising, Sales Order picking and Dispatch.  Feedback from early adopter customers includes “I have been so impressed with the new Emydex XDA.  The speed at which it works is fantastic even with the database being in the cloud” Operating on Android devices means Emydex customers can source devices, from a wide range of manufacturers, at a lower cost compared to previous Windows mobile devices.

Central Animal Payments (CAPS)

A complete rewrite of our widely used Animal kill line payment system.  CAPS provides the core ‘engine’ which is used to not only generate payments to livestock suppliers but also to those other entities involved in supplying livestock such as buyers, agents, and transport companies.  In addition to generating payments, the system can produce accounts receivable invoices for service processing allowing suppliers to be paid.

Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) Portal

A new web-based application that enables Emydex customers to manage their supplier audits over the web.  Suppliers securely log into an Emydex web portal to complete self-assessment questionnaires/assessments (SAQ), collect relevant documents, submit product specifications, and manage contacts.  The supply chain manager will be able to manage everything related to suppliers completing SAQs and managing their supplier’s approval status & risk rating.  As well as this, they will be able to receive notifications a view all information submitted by the supplier.

Other new products in the Pipeline for 2023 include further development of our new Enterprise Management System (EMS), a corporate-level suite of software applications targeted specifically at maintaining data integrity, reducing data entry, and improving control across multi-plant businesses.

If you want to learn more – contact Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, or North America offices

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Emydex CAPS off year with Livestock Payments System

Emydex CAPS off the year with a new Livestock Settlements System

For most Meat processors, the procurement of raw materials, especially Livestock, is by far the largest variable cost for the business to manage. Therefore, being able to ensure the Accurate andTimely payment for this stock is a key requirement. Many Meatprocessors choose to differentiate themselves from their competitors based on the speed and accuracy of payment to their suppliers. Emydex’s recently redeveloped Central Animal Payment System (CAPS) is designed to meet this requirement specifically, as well as to provide functionality that provides parameter-driven flexibility to meet all current and future requirements.

 

Calculating Animal Settlements

The key to the success of the system is the ability to design animal payment ‘methods’ that can be added to the system as a component to suit individual customer needs without modifying the existing system. This means that if there is a requirement for a new way of paying a supplier, whether it be based on a contract, supply volumes, average market process, or a complex grid-based system, these can be developed and ‘locked in’ to the existing system as a snapshot for later retrieval.

As standard, the Animal Payment System caters to multiple payment grids where any data from the kill floor or kill ‘lot’ (delivery) can be incorporated into multiple axes of a grid to generate a payment.

This might be a weight range and fat score or a meat marbling score and dentition range i.e. virtually any combination of data elements that can be measured as part of livestock processing.

Multiple grids can be used to accumulate values such as a supplementary ‘bonus’ value or to allow a record to pass to a second grid if the criteria for the first grid e.g. a carcass that is too heavy or old for the first payment grid. This ‘fall through’ process can be repeated until a grid that matches is finally found.

 

Cattle Payment Invoicing and Adjustments

The system is capable of producing recipient-created tax invoices (RCTI) for suppliers (farmers), third-party agents, commissioned livestock buyers, transport companies and service or contract kills (an accounts receivable transaction rather than the usual accounts payable).

User-defined adjustments, again using virtually any of the data in the system, can apply adjustments to this invoice to either deduct money for items such as carcass faults, levies, transport costs etc. or apply a rebate such as a ‘skin’ or hide credit. These can be applied automatically using pre-defined ‘settlement schemes’ (groups of adjustments) or added manually on a case-by-case basis.

 

Carcass Costings

As a carcass is produced, the system can calculate the cost for the carcass per kg (or lb) by running each carcass record through the various livestock settlement processes to generate the total cost, so not only is the cost of the purchase from the supplier included but also the cost of freight, commissions etc.

Costs that do not appear on any invoice such as a kill fee can also be included if required. This allows for carcasses to be costed before the payment is finalised so if the carcass is disposed of via a sale or boning process, the cost can be reported as part of the input to the process for accurate costings. Alternatively, carcass costs can be updated once the payment is finalised.

 

Animal Payment Reporting

Invoice and costing data can be updated to an in-house or 3rd party provider ERP or Financial system for payment with full audit trails and costing audits available in the CAPS system. Standard reports are available and data from the payment system can be surfaced using the in-built Emydex Business Intelligence (BI) tool.

Kill data can be from Emydex kill floor systems or up-uploaded from multiple sources and sites to allow for a centralized system for consolidated processing and reporting.

 

Centralised Payments catering for large Enterprises

Given the flexibility and extensibility of the system, current and future needs can easily be met with an ‘out of the box’ system. Once configured the system can generate payments, email all parties involved and update costs and financial systems at the push of a button. Payment processes that would traditionally take hours can be streamlined and the labour requirements significantly reduced.

Accurate costings allow for true profitability costing as the input costs to sales and further processing are readily available.

With the ability to run as a centralised process taking data from many sources, both large enterprises to single site operations can all gain tremendous advantages from the new system.

 

If you want to learn more – contact Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, or North America offices.

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Turning over a new leaf in New Zealand

Turning Over A New Leaf In New Zealand

How Emydex helped the largest livestock processing company in New Zealand to replace a 25-year-old Abattoir system with a new state-of-the-art solution that worked so well, it’s planned to go into 13 other facilities. The pilot operation in Christchurch was originally scheduled for a three-week installation but was up and running in just four days. However, the conversation with Silver Fern Farms started over a decade ago, the tendering process was exhaustive, and preparation and simulation reached a whole new level of precision.

 

Meet The Client

Silver Fern Farms is the largest livestock processor in New Zealand with a 30% market share, 7,000 employees working across 14 plants and a turnover of NZ$ 2.7b. They represent 16,000 sheep, cattle, and deer farmers, exporting to 60 countries worldwide. The Silver Fern Farms headquarters is in the centre of Dunedin on the South Island.

Emydex has been working on a deal with Silver Fern Farms since 2010 which makes this the longest sales cycle in the company’s history. Over the course of the 10-year discussions, the Emydex team paid several visits to Silver Fern Farm’s head office in Dunedin, as well as beef processing plants across New Zealand, and various delegations from Silver Fern Farms travelled to Ireland to visit Emydex at their head office in Dublin, as well as Emydex customer plants in Ireland and the UK.

 

The Opportunity

In 2019, Silver Fern Farms informed Emdyex that they were ready to start a formal project to replace their ageing factory floor traceability and production control system systems. The pilot plant was to be their primal beef processing facility in Belfast, Christchurch which had been using the same system for 25 years.

As part of the formal tender process, Emydex pitched against two other international specialist firms, as well as a local supplier of MES software systems. The pitch process comprised a comprehensive selection process that included two days of presentations and meetings, involving demonstrations of nine scripted scenarios (traceability, packing, etc) over seven hours before thirty people from the Silver Fern Farm’s group, followed by a second day of meetings with their internal IT team as well as their engineering department. In the end, Emydex emerged as the preferred supplier and was awarded the contract for a beef primal processing pilot project in their Belfast plant in Christchurch.

 

What Emydex Did

The project was originally planned to go live in July 2020 when the Belfast plant traditionally closed for a 3-week period, but the COVID-19 pandemic brought everything to a halt. Due to the pandemic, the project was moved back by a year. During that time, the project scope expanded to include other technical aspects for delivery, for example, a whole new system for animal assembly.

The new Emydex system configured for Silver Fern Farm’s handles everything from the booking and intake of the animals and follows the flow through the factory floor including the stun station, live weight, head inspections, carcass inspections, reinspection, and grading. Everything meets the strictest New Zealand government veterinarian standards and procedures, and it all integrates with the existing CRS system for streamlined payment processing.

 

Emydex System In Use

 

Automation was a big part of the project, replacing the factory floor terminals with integration to their programmable logic controllers (PLCs). Each hook has an identification on the hook and the system collects information at every station along the line.

Automation like this is the main difference we see between the European and the Australian and New Zealand markets. The level of investment in automation is higher but it pays back in labour efficiencies – machines don’t catch COVID.

James Grennan, Technical Director, Emydex

 

Going Live

The project finally went live in November 2021 following a comprehensive testing and training schedule for all operatives that included simulations, dry runs, full monitoring of everything at all stages and then an Emydex team onsite. The client anticipated a three-week switchover, but the joint teams managed to complete the switchover in just four days.

 

Emydex On-Site Training

 

The Belfast plant operates two shifts, producing 20 hours a day which makes it a very busy plant. Emydex supports the plant at all times, 24x7, with a team of Emydex engineers spread across New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, and Canada, following the sun.

 

From our support offices in New Zealand, Australia, Ireland and Canada we can follow the sun so that should anyone in Silver Fern Farms have an issue, they can call Emydex on just one number and there will be someone at their desk to take their call and, if it’s a critical issue, it’s a sequential line, downtime can cost thousands of dollars a minute. We can analyse and resolve immediately 24 hours a day with our four teams around the world.

Lorna Daly, Head of PMO, Emydex

 

Emydex today have a team of five people employed in New Zealand and ten in the Emdyex Australia office in Brisbane, supporting Silver Fern Farms as well as two other New Zealand food processing companies. This makes Emdyex the largest Irish employer of permanent staff in New Zealand, according to Enterprise Ireland, for whom Emdyex are a client company. In fact, the introduction of Emydex to Silver Ferns Farms originally came via Enterprise Ireland’s Australia office, through one of their market-office staff based in New Zealand.

 

Enterprise Ireland has been a huge help to Emdyex in Australia and New Zealand. The EI Australasia team are so supportive of Emydex and other Irish companies, it’s reassuring to know we have these local supports in place for whenever we need them

David McMahon, CEO, Emydex

 

The Results

As you would expect, the new Emydex system has brought new levels of efficiency and productivity to the Silver Fern Farms facility in Belfast, Christchurch. What is so impressive is that this was a very efficient and well-run operation even before we went near it but soon after go-live, Silver Fern Farms confirmed that they had processed more cattle in one shift than they had ever done before and finished earlier too.

 

The project went well. Emydex is a great system and the staff love using it. The system gives good information and reports, it is easy to use and works well. There are efficiencies in that all the data is in one area, and we no longer have to review or get reports in more than one system to get the information we want. Staff on the floor, as well as leaders and management, have benefitted the most when it comes to information and reports that the Emydex system can supply. Their engineers and technical people are very good; their project managers are very knowledgeable and able to keep us informed

Phillip William Kilgour, Plant Manager, Silver Fern Farms

 

Bringing all different systems into one system will have benefits. This means one system for our end-to-end site process - from livestock booking through to container load-out to the customer. Talking to some of the workers they like the new Emydex system and it has helped them

Shaun O’Neill, Regional Operations Manager, Silver Fern Farms

 

Feedback from Belfast has been very positive, and it’s great to have all site functions in one system as well as having timely access to important information for decision making.

Simon Limmer, CEO, Silver Fern Farms

 

What’s Next?

Based on the success of the pilot project, Silver Fern Farms have accelerated its plan to roll out Emydex to its 13 other processing plants spread across New Zealand. In 2022, the plan in Phase 2 is to tackle Production Scheduling, Packing, and Automatic Labelling along with the implementation of Emydex’s Enterprise Management System (EMS) for Master Data. The EMS system will be used to centrally manage data from the head office to individual plants. In conjunction with Phase 2, additional teams will make any adaptions needed to the existing Livestock processing system required to roll out to other bovine sites and then move on to the implementation of the ovine and venison systems.

 

In Other’s Words

In terms of their professionalism… as a meat processing company, Silver Ferns employ project managers, process managers, business analysts as well as internal QA testers. They installed their own Emydex training lab and ran the kill line with dry runs using big blue plastic barrels (blue cows) hanging from the hooks to simulate carcasses. This level of attention to detail was impressive to see. Emydex is a better company for the experience we had working with Silver Fern Farms.

David McMahon, CEO Emydex

 

One of the biggest and hopefully unique issues with this project was that our team members on the ground had to travel from outside NZ and so quarantine for two weeks in advance of the go live. There was a lottery for the MIQ quarantine places, and it was tough waiting for when the places opened. Even close to the go-live flight cancellations caused some issues with our team having to travel long hours by car. Due to COVID, Emydex has adapted to not having the full team onsite for the launch with team members working remotely. The team worked via video calls and cameras were installed to give a view of the factory floor. We had easy access to remotely control each terminal.

Shane Hayes, Product Manager, Emydex

 

If you want to learn more – contact Ireland, Australia, South Africa or North American offices

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