1. Effective Order Placement

Being efficient at taking orders and making the process easy for the customer is the first primary item. Today customers want to be serviced…and they should be! The sales rep should know the customer and their buying habits. To this end, an “Order Guide” can be made available to the customer, detailing their purchasing history, broken down by product group, with the usage per period and their favourable pricing and the SRP.

Using the Order Guide as a basis for placing orders, the internal sales person can easily take customer order over the phone, or from a faxed or e-Mailed order. Optionally, the outside sales rep takes the order at the customer’s location using their laptop or I-Pad. Orders are transmitted to the warehouse and a confirmation e-Mailed to the customer. All these situations typically use the order entry/invoicing method for order placement. If the customers pick up their orders from the warehouse directly, a quicker Point of Sale (POS) method is more desirable with its minimum keystrokes and maximum through put. On occasion, the customer may be supplied directly from their truck.

Each truck on the road can be considered as a warehouse and be its own profit center. Of course, on all occasions, the pricing strategy for the customer needs to provide the correct price and discount during the sale. And if a special price has been set up for the customer, this price needs to be automatically retrieved.
More and more customers like the convenience of ordering 24/7.

The best way to provide this convenience is to provide ordering over the Website and integrating the ordering with the “brick & mortar” order entry system.

Of course, while the ordering is taking place, you really need to be able to check the inventory stock levels and the customer’s accounts receivable credit balance. If the order is to be paid COD, then ensure you have a credit card or check in hand.

In addition, being able to review previous client contact notes and adding new notes to the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is always handy and make for effective order placement. (Note: Show the Order Guide with the article)

  1. Effective Inventory Control

Having a handle on what is in stock and when deliveries are expected is critical for both the sales team as well as production. Customers tend not to overstock today…it’s just in time so they don’t provide a long lead time for ordering. Order placement, pick, pack and ship with minimum back ordering.
Production is much the same. Current order backlogs, projected ordering patterns are used to schedule production. You need to ensure that all the ingredients are available when the production order is scheduled.

  1. Food and Beverage Quality is Critical

More and more consumers and the food and beverage companies in the distribution channel want to be assured that proper precautions are taken during production. Quality control processes are being introduced with critical control point monitoring. But this all goes back to having the production Bill of Materials (BOM) which includes the products and their respective quantities, any special equipment and preparation procedures, quality control sampling, amongst other critical elements.
Then during the production process, the actual quantities and lot numbers for the ingredients are recorded, the quality control results, and the final quantities produced with their lot numbers and expiry dates.
One of the leading methods for management and monitoring is the “Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point”, commonly referred to as HACCP for establishing policies and procedures within the organization for ensuring food safety.

  1. Recall Capability

If there is a recall on a item by a supplier or on one of the finished goods, the producers need to be able to quickly and cost efficiently document precisely where the ingredients went in the manufacturing process, including reworked/reused products.
The producer needs to know where the products were shipped and what lot numbers were affected.
One ingredient could be used in thousands of products. To reconstruct all the possible products and where they have ended up, including those still in stock could take hundreds of hours…and not produce totally accurate tracking.

ONEIR Solutions’ ERP software for food & beverage processing and distribution business is designed to give you that strategic competitive advantage and control recalls which is very crucial for your business

  1. Manage Costs to a Minimum
    Keeping costs down ensures that the food and beverage processors are competitive and operate profitably. One of the keys to achieving this state is to use fully integrated Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software whereby there are no duplication of efforts.
    Opportunities for improving both the company’s effectiveness and efficiencies can be identified with more accurate reporting and more importantly, if this reporting is provided to monitor actions taken and employee performance including complete financial reporting…no matter how many locations and where they are.
  2. Affordable Pricing

All food and beverage processors and distributors should have at their grasp an affordable Process Manufacturing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software solution that they can easily implement and integrate into their company.

If you are a Food Processing and Wholesale Distribution business that is “bursting at the seams” and is expanding into more locations, Oneir Solutions is designed to make your dreams reality.

Contact us at 1.877.322.3580 or visit our online form today!