I was recently asked to explain NotaZone Trace to a manufacturing consultant engaged by a client.
After a few minutes, he exclaimed, "You have filled the black hole in MRP!!". A phrase that stuck with me, and in exploring this further with him brought me to write this article to explain what it means.
You may ask "What is this 'black hole'?". Let me explain ..
Typical MRP/ERP systems are very good at managing manufacturing and production processes. They know all about what you make, your raw materials, bills of materials, costs, and they will forecast demand using any of several models.
Examples include Unleashed, MRPeasy, SAP, CIN7, Aptean, Wherefour and there are many, many more to choose from. They are designed to support a traditional manufacturing businesses and do this very well.
The 'black hole' in these systems is that they do "a poor job" with batch traceability through a manufacturing process. This is especially so when your process has several steps, making 'sub-assemblies' to come together into a finished product.
As an example; we might 'assemble' a pie from some pastry, some gravy or sauce, and some filling (vegetable or meat). These are all made from other ingredients with their own recipes.
With some food products, this 'chain' of recipes can be several layers deep and is what can give a traditional MRP system pause for thought.
Food production is chaotic (in the mathematical meaning) and therefore somewhat unpredictable, as typically what you make comes out slightly different every time.
Recipes for food are more guidelines than rules and the actual yield varies depending on a number of factors; including cooking time, moisture content of ingredients, humidity in the kitchen and more.
Typical MRP systems prefer "black and white" answers, and this is where the "black hole" exists in these traditional systems. Great if you make widgets, not so good for food!
At best, they make you do all the hard work of relating batches to WIP products, then through to finished batches. At worst they do not handle food traceability at all.
These generic systems also struggle to forecast and plan production for you using their rigid, rules based approaches.
NotaZone Trace has been designed from the ground up to support all the nuances of food production.
Since we began in 2010, we have worked hard to understand food production and build tools to help the industry. We have lived and breathed food production for fifteen years and feel that we are well towards understanding it's nuances.
NotaZone Trace is the end result of all this learning and customer feedback. It was built in support for batch traceability, variable yields and food safety and compliance records; all wrapped up in an easy to use system.
We specialise in food, and nothing else! Our 'shop floor' apps are designed to be used by busy food production and warehouse staff, who do not have time to waste in front of computers, and need tools that fit into their environment and support their way of working.
By design, yes, it does. In understanding how food is produced and how traceability of food must work, we have built an outstanding solution to this problem and our customers agree with this.
NotaZone Trace is the best answer to this 'black hole' it provides all the functionality a food business needs from purchase orders, stock control, through production and on to sales. Its support for the SALSA and BRCGS standards gives peace of mind and makes you audit ready every day.
NotaZone Trace is flexible, configurable and easy to use, onboarding is supported by our great team and our subscription plans are great value for money.