Founded by Murray Bresky in 1992, Murray’s Chicken is dedicated to the local community and delivering top-quality meat. Today, Murray’s chickens are raised in the hills of Southeastern Pennsylvania and processed just over the New York state line in the Catskill Mountain region of Sullivan County. By partnering with a select number of family farms, Murray’s strengthens local economies and supports small farmers, allowing them to focus on producing broilers of exceptional quality and taste. Quality in all aspects is the driving force of the company.
Murray’s Upgrades to Real-Time Quality Control
When it came to quality control and traceability, Murray’s Chicken used to rely on pen and paper to record production parameters, with employees carrying clipboards to perform checks throughout the day. This manual process often caused delays, making it impossible to implement immediate adjustments if something was off. The plant manager had to locate the person with the paperwork to review checklists before acting, consuming many man-hours and requiring extensive storage for years of data.
Audits involved sorting through multiple binders, which was time-consuming and cumbersome. While this method complied with regulations, customer demands, and audits, it didn’t enhance the process, and valuable process history could easily get lost. Although outdated, this approach is still typical in many similar plants today. Murray’s sought an electronic quality management system (EQMS), that worked in real-time. Whilst visiting the BAADER booth at the IPPE tradeshow in Atlanta in early 2024, they got introduced to BAADER’s new software partner, Emydex Technology.
Murray’s primarily buys their factory floor machines from BAADER, and appreciates the synergies with Emydex, which offers a platform to monitor machine performance. They could see benefits in Emydex being tightly integrated with their machine manufacturer.
Digital Quality Control Replaces Paper Clipboards
Within six weeks of starting the project, Murray’s technical team, in collaboration with Emydex, successfully implemented the Emydex system for quality checks on their first processing lines in the New York factory. The entire Evisceration process is now operational on the Emydex platform. ”Only six weeks later, the first devices were out on the floor replacing paper clipboards in the evisceration area”, said Phil Wise, Plant Manager at Murray’s Chicken.
Since then, EQMS has expanded to include sixteen unique workflow designs throughout the facility. There are five QC tablet devices in operation, used by multiple teams completing over one hundred different workflows per day and counting. During this bedding-in period, the Emydex team was on hand to answer questions and provide support as needed, taking Murray’s feedback and incorporating it into the EQMS system to benefit all customers. Next step is to integrate secondary processing and shipping, making the entire process electronic for data capture and reporting on all aspects of QC.
“When it came to training, Emydex made sure to thoroughly teach our QC Manager, not only how to build quality checks, but also to customize them to be exactly how she wanted them to be. Once the initial training was done, it has been pretty easy”, said Phil Wise. “The QC technicians enter the plant with their tablets, get trained, and then it becomes second nature to them. It also benefits me as the plant manager. I spend a lot of time at my computer, and I can see the checks being carried out in real time. This saves me a lot of time as I can see exactly what I want to see, when I want to see it, without having to leave the office and go into the plant to find someone”.
“The QC technicians enter the plant with their tablets, get trained, and then it becomes second nature to them”
Phil Wise, Plant Manager Murray’s Chicken.
Saving Time and Reducing Errors
“In terms of the greatest benefit we see from the Emydex system, it is mostly time. Emydex eliminates unnecessary checks by integrating all essential ones into its system. Previously, we were performing checks on our checks, for compliance, for customer requirements, and for internal information. With Emydex we were able to eliminate a lot of these additional checks. Emydex allows us to reassess and gives us more time to focus on compliance and process improvement”.
Furthermore, Emydex creates a better sense of accountability. You can see how long it takes for a technician to do a QC check. It creates more authority over the system. Using pen-and-paper, manual errors happen more often, whereas all data captured via an electronic check is monitored, validated and verified.
From a reporting standpoint, it is also quicker and easier to analyse and graph QC data captured, using Emydex’s BI (Business Intelligence) reporting tool. Trends can easily be extracted, and graphs can be compiled right away. “The Emydex system gives me a sense of security that the data I am looking at is accurate”, said Phil Wise. Phil also commended the alert system within Emydex, where he gets an email right away whenever there is a deviation. “The more you can have that information in real time, the better off you are to decide how to handle the issue. You don’t have to go hunting for the information”. Previously, issues like an excess of broken wings would only be noticed via paper records at the end of the day, necessitating machine adjustments or further investigation the following day.
“The new system offers remarkable flexibility. In the past, creating and maintaining paper records was mandatory. Now, by setting alerts for specific criteria within a chosen timeframe, we can cater to particular customer requests. For instance, to prevent potential customer complaints about an excessive number of miscut drumsticks, I could introduce an additional quality control check in the Emydex system and set it to be active for a specified period of time. Once this period is over, the extra check is automatically removed. This system allows such adaptability. When QC personnel go to the floor, they can say, ‘I have a new check to perform; I need to double-check drumstick cases for customer X.’ Implementing these corrective actions helps in continual growth. Once you familiarize yourself with the system, its ease of use becomes apparent”, said Phil.
Instant Access to Quality Data
Murray’s vision is to have the entire plant use Emydex for quality and compliance checks, with the same tablets also being used to access machine manuals, monitor performance, and view product grading images. This would help maintenance and QC work together more effectively, supporting production staff. Maintenance could check vendor quality with QC in real time. For instance, if there were mishaps in the last batch of birds, maintenance could immediately analyse the machine’s performance. “Our bird counter is automated and integrated. When a technician inspects the deboning machine, for example, he should access the history of checks through the system, including KPIs and alerts. There is a lot that the system can do, which is not utilized yet. Especially considering machine performance, which has great potential”, said Phil.
“The Emydex team is easy going and great to work with, they are always available 24/7. I would even go so far as to say they are world-class people to deal with. Emydex understands the process a little bit differently, but this is the beauty of the system: it accommodates Murray’s customer-specific needs”
Phil Wise, Plant Manager Murray’s Chicken.
The system installed at Murray’s Chicken is well-suited for smaller plants that need specialized systems. Over a thousand different product codes, so not everything is standard. The previous system required significant manual effort. With the implementation of Emydex, processes have been standardized, enhancing accountability and traceability. “All information is right at my fingertips. I love it”, said Phil Wise.
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