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Emydex launch new Mobile Device Applications

Emydex have launched a new mobile device application (MDA) that sits between the smart device application (SDA) and PC application (PCA). The application was developed for users that required a portable device with a larger screen and more functionality than currently available with hand held scanning terminals.

The MDA application will run on any Windows XP / Windows 7 based device such as notebooks, tough books and tablet PC’s. It is intended for applications that need to be operable in offline mode when connection to the main Emydex database is not possible.

The MDA application utilises a local database which synchronises with the Emydex SQL server database when connected to the host network via either it’s built in Wi-Fi connectivity, internet access or modem.

Emydex have deployed the MDA application in Tough Book devices that are equipped with integrated camera, bar code scanner, RFID reader, memory card reader and fingerprint scanner.

These devices have touch screen displays and are sealed to IP65 specification.

So far the MDA application has been configured for use as a fieldsman data input station, an ante-mortem station in the lairage at abattoirs and a mobile QC device for use anywhere in a factory.

The fieldsman application enables the user to view the plant kill plans when visiting producers and arranging appointments to deliver suitable livestock to the plant.

The ante mortem application enables lairage staff to enter QC data including take photographs of livestock that do not arrive in the best of condition. This picture can be tied to the animal’s ear tag to ensure a full record is maintained in the kill line system.

As a QC device the MDA application enables QC forms to be ran on the device. All of the scanning and camera devices built into the device can be used together with any external device connected to the USB / serial interface ports, such as temperature or PH probes.

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Winner 2011 Innovation in IT Award

Winner 2011 Innovation in IT Award

For the second year running, Emydex Technology were announced winners of the 2011 Innovation in IT award at the D15 Chamber of Commerce ceremony held in the Crowne Plaza Hotel & Country Club on Friday 7th October.

Sponsored by IBM, this award cements Emydex position as not only a successful Irish Technology company operating within the Agri-food space, but also as a leading Irish technology company within the wider business landscape.

Since winning the Innovation in IT award last year, Emydex’s headcount has doubled in size, revenues and profits have grown substantially, and the company is now looking at new markets including France and South Africa where Emydex recently announced the appointment of authorised distributors in both countries. “We are excited to have added a number of senior programmers to the development team recently, all of whom have over 10 years of relevant experience. At this stage our team has over 100 years combined experience of working with technology specifically for the food processing sector” said David McMahon, CEO of Emydex technology.

Commenting on the award win, James Grennan, company Technical Director said “We’re delighted to be chosen by the Chamber and IBM to win this award over some other excellent shortlisted companies, this helps us maintain our constant drive to build better and smarter software solutions for our present and future customers”

L to R on Picture: John Carolan – IBM, James Grennan – Emydex Technical Director, Susan Grennan, David Donnelly – Chamber President, Jayne McMahon, and David McMahon – Emydex CEO, presented with the Innovation in IT 2011 Award.

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Emydex Animal Payment System showcased at MeatUp UK

Over two days in June Emydex showcased a number of their new software products to the Meat processing trade at the UK’s new MeatUp Expo, which took place at Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire over the 21st & 22nd June 2011.

Animal Payment

On display was Emydex’s latest release of their new multi-species Animal Settlement and Payments system, a fully integrated add-on to the Emydex Beef, lamb and Pork Kill line systems. The latest version of Beef Animal payments went live earlier in June at Emydex’s new customer Euro Farm Foods based in Duleek, Ireland.

Euro Farm foods replaced their existing beef kill line system with the Emydex beef kill line system incorporating Beef Lairage bookings, real-time links to the Department of Agriculture’s AIMs system for tracking cattle movements, real-time links to Bord Bia’s Beef Quality Assurance scheme via web services for tracking Supplier’s quality assurance status, Beef Ear-tag station, Grading & Weighing station, Offal packing, Carcass dispatch and Beef payment.

Emydex at MeatUp Uk 2011
Emydex at MeatUp Uk 2011
Emydex at MeatUp Uk 2011

The Animal payment module is capable of producing remittance advice notes, printing supplier cheques and managing associated costs involved with the abattoir. It allows for different payment schemas to be associated with individual suppliers or supplier groups. In addition to supplier payment the system also supports payment to clippers, hauliers and agents on an aggregated basis over time. Ad-hoc and supplementary payments are also supported. In addition to providing Multi-currency functionality, the system tracks historical pricing and exchange rates, and has a facility to define future pricing based on valid from dates. Beef payments in Ireland are automatically generated based on the 15 point Quality Payment grid.

The plan is to now roll-out a Lamb Animal Payment system in partnership with another new Emydex customer based in Scotland with whom Emydex will work with to configure their new multi-species payment system specifically for Lamb payments. “There are obviously differences between beef and lamb payments but these can be all handled by the configuration capabilities within the system, rather than requiring any new development effort” said Pete Kettell, Emydex’s UK Sales manager.

“We are also are also planning to roll-out our animal payment system for Pork payments either in conjunction with some of our existing pork processing customers operating a pork kill line or a new pork processing customer”, said David McMahon, CEO of Emydex.

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Emydex Beef Kill Line goes live in Euro Farm Foods.

Euro Farm Foods
Euro Farm Foods operate a beef slaughter plant at Cooksgrove, near Duleek in Co. Meath. The present business is unrecognisable from the small local abattoir taken over in 2001 by Michael & Agnes Fox. Continuous investment in infrastructure and personnel has helped the business establish and succeed in a demanding customer driven market.

With a view to further development of the business, in late 2010 Euro Farm Foods decided to upgrade from their previous factory software system to Emydex’s Kill line and Carcass Management system. After a period of design, installation and implementation, the go-live was complete in June 2011.

The Emydex lairage system in Euro Farm Foods links to both the AIMs and Bord Bia’s Quality Assurance systems in real-time, retrieving and verifying animal details, as well as farm quality assured status. Their upgraded kill line system includes an ear-tag sequencer, Grading/Weighing Stations, as well as Carcass Dispatch and Offal Packing terminals. Euro Farm Foods now also operate Emydex’s multi-currency Cattle payments system for animal settlements and cheque/remittance printing. The payments module also provides Euro Farm with the functionality to interface with their financial software package.

Commenting on the Emydex project, Ciaran Boyle, Financial Controller with Euro Farm Foods said; “Any decision to switch management information software is difficult due to a multitude of factors involved. After researching the factory software options which would best fit our business, we were impressed by the product and the people that are Emydex. It was reassuring to discuss our needs with people who knew and understood our business. This worked particularly well during the development of the cattle payments module. Difficulties encountered during the implementation process were not allowed become problems with agreed solutions delivered. Users have the benefits of improved accurate and reliable business reporting, stock controls, traceability and quality information. The support tools and staff also deserve a mention. Their assistance has been of particular help to our business.”

David McMahon, Emydex CEO added ‘as Euro Farm Foods are a single plant customers it was crucial Emydex provided Euro Farms with a cut-over to Emydex with as little disruption to production as possible. We initially implemented our Carcass dispatch module on an offal packing and carcass dispatch terminals, while interfacing back to their existing kill line system to extract and report on kill line activity. Once we were happy offal packing and carcass dispatch were all working fine, and the reports were correct we swapped out their existing kill line and payments systems with Emydex and switched over to Emydex entirely.
For more information on the Emydex system click here or contact Emydex on +353 1 8855990

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

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.”

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eTransfers System simplifies data exchange between 3rd party plants

eTransfers, a new feature within Emydex’s Warehouse Management module is a new development that gives food processing plants total control over stock transfers between sites, whether inter-company or 3rd party sites such as Cold Storage and Coldstore facilities.

The business benefits of eTransfers include near real-time communications, guaranteed delivery, and box level traceability of stocks once put-away in 3rd party locations, a feature most legacy WMS systems are incapable of delivering.

eTransfers uses email as its transport mechanism. Once received, emails are logged into the recipient Emydex system automatically for processing. “We chose to use email for three reasons” said James Grennan, Technical Director with Emydex “first, email is freely available to everyone – everyone has email. Second, email guarantees delivery in that if the recipient is offline, the email exchange will buffer the message and keep trying to resend until the message is finally delivered. Third, email offers single to multiple-point communications capabilities. One email message can be sent once to multiple locations or parties simultaneously” he added. This all means there is a lesser chance of failure to deliver electronic messages than when using other transport mechanisms.

All messages to be exported and imported between Emydex systems are in the form of structured XML using standard messaging protocols. The types of electronic messages transferred between sites includes Advanced Shipping Notices (ASNs), Shipment Receipt Notices, Shipment Dispatch Requests/Notices, Inventory Level Requests/Notices, Shipment Status Requests/Notices and Inventory Update Notices. A shipment Dispatch Notice for example contains details such as shipment date, time, no pallets, no boxes etc.

This is Emydex’s version of EDI, only better, using which customers can exchange data with 3rd party systems in a standard secure and reliable way. Messages can be encrypted and compressed if required.

The new eTransfers system was successfully in the lead up to Christmas with Moy Park Poultry in Ballymena, and the Interfrigo Cold Storage facility in Antrim, both Emydex customers. In the few weeks before Christmas an enormous volume of Turkeys were shipped out by Moy Park many of which were bound for Interfrigo. Using the eTransfers feature Moy Park are able to dispatch and trace shipments into and out of Interfrigo seamlessly. On the Interfrigo side, once received, goods were verified, put-away picked and dispatched all via Emydex, with the ability to break-down and rebuild pallets to fulfil sales orders as required. The Interfrigo Emydex system also includes a web-portal to allow customers real-time access to their stocks within Interfrigo.
For more information on the Emydex Technology systems click here or contact Emydex on +353 1 8855990

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