Movex System Helps UK Frozen Foods Company Reach Market Goals

Fisher Frozen Foods has set its sights on European market leadership of the frozen vegetables market by the Year 2001. Getting there isn't going to be easy. But the frozen food market is changing. Size is important, but so too is the ability to become more vertically integrated and, in so doing, form strong business partnerships with major producers. The IT infrastructure that will support Fisher Frozen Foods' ambitions is being provided by Intentia through its enterprise resource planning system, Movex.

Fisher Frozen Foods is the UK's leading supplier of frozen vegetables to the retail, catering, manufacturing and export sectors, and the largest business within the Frozen and Chilled Food Division of Albert Fisher plc.

"We knew we needed a new IT infrastructure if we were to meet our business objectives, but it was the acquisition of Frigoscandia's food processing business based in Kings Lynn, Norfolk and Grimsby, that brought the whole IT issue into focus. The acquisition gave us a UK processing base and the economies of scale needed to compete on a European basis," said Nigel Terry, managing director, Fisher Frozen Foods and chief executive, Frozen and Chilled Food Division.

"But it highlighted the simple fact that, without the ability to process vegetables faster - as well as to integrate production, marketing and the IT infrastructure to give a complete picture of the company's performance - we were not going to achieve improved business performance, planning and forecasting. Movex will deliver us the capability to effectively support our growth by providing this infrastructure," Terry continued.

The Movex Solution
Movex is a set of fully integrated business applications that can be combined to suit an organization's needs. It is an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system with a high level of functionality covering, for example, logistics, manufacturing, finance, marketing, sales, human resources and quality. Movex, which supports the full range of business processes, operates in a client server environment.

It was after the decision had been made to use Movex at Fisher Frozen Foods in the UK that the Frozen and Chilled Food Division undertook an entire review of its IT infrastructure. Movex was chosen as the best fit for its six businesses in the UK, Holland, Poland and Belgium, providing a common system across the division.

"We chose to pilot Movex at Kings Lynn and Grimsby because they were almost a worst case scenario. There was manual recording of vegetable deliveries and multiple keying into different systems - a lengthy and error-prone procedure. And there was one other factor. The pea harvest was almost upon us, so we had just 14 weeks to put Movex in," explained Alan Briggs, Divisional IT Controller for the Frozen and Chilled Food Division.

At the Kings Lynn plant, fresh produce is frozen immediately and packed later. It was decided to tackle the delivery and freezing of the produce first because this was the area where most data was generated. It also provided a tangible benefit immediately - support to the process of moving peas from field to frozen in 150 minutes - a business and quality goal of Fisher Frozen Foods. The 150 minutes begin when the first pea in each batch is picked and finishes when the last pea is frozen. The faster the produce is frozen the better the quality. Green vegetables lose half their Vitamin C content within five days of harvesting, but vegetables that are quick-frozen within hours of harvest retain important nutrients and flavor.

Achieving the "150-minute pea" meant having to do smaller shipments from field to factory, which in turn meant more shipments, leading to a sharp increase volume of data at the factory gate as shipments were booked in.

Implementation
Movex was implemented and running within the 14 weeks, shortcutting the implementation process. Alan Briggs explains, "By quickly introducing Movex, some parts of Implex - Intentia's methodology for implementing Movex - were skipped in a pragmatic approach to meet the timeframe. This won't happen again. The experience of the Frozen and Chilled Food Division shows that if systems are ever to be more than partially implemented, the project must be carefully planned and controlled to see the real business benefits of using ERP. Implex offers a fresh approach to implementation. It has been key to the work we've done so far, enabling us to improve our business process and make the IT fit the business rather than having to reshape the organization around the IT."

How Movex Works At Fisher Frozen Foods
Movex takes details of deliveries as they arrive at the plant gate, against a planned delivery schedule. A manufacturing order is raised and all pallets booked against the order. Movex automatically works out how much the farmer is to be paid. "Using Movex to monitor the 150-minute process, we have been able to 'harvest' the benefits of fast data availability and analysis," says Alan Briggs.

The analysis of information by Movex has meant Fisher Frozen Foods can provide feedback to growers, such as the weight of the load, results of tests on the load, and the purchase value of the load. Movex is also a single point of entry for all information.

Later phases of the implementation will deliver analysis of factory efficiency, and provide timely information for buying and selling produce from around the world. Different countries have different seasons. If there is a poor harvest in one country and a good harvest in another, then there is buying and selling between countries. Fisher Frozen Foods buys fresh produce from growers, but it also buys frozen produce from the UK and internationally - sweet corn, for example.

Movex will be used to provide better service to Fisher Frozen Foods' customers through computerized traceability. With the old system, this would have meant trawling through thousands of manual records. Fisher Frozen Foods is also planning to develop its system in line with the requirements of retailers and is already working on EDI.

Alan Briggs concludes, "Another attraction of Movex is that Intentia works with industries other than food, so they bring fresh ideas to our business. We want to use Movex to do things not typical of food companies and learn lessons from other manufacturing sectors, such as JIT production techniques."

Intentia International, North America, 10255 West Higgins Road, Suite 200, Rosemont, IL 60018. Tel: 847-768-1300; Fax: 847-768-1325.