Prophet plc will provide the operating system at Fruit First. The PR2 software to be used will control every single function within the facility, including driving the robotic palleting system from start to finish. Prophet’s involvement will give full traceability, accurate reporting and live stock information to customers.

Commenting on the investment in both IT software and state-of-the-art Dutch, Italian and Danish sorting, grading, packing and storage technology, Fruit First’s Richard Day says: “We have looked hard at our existing services and realise where we can improve. Besides cost savings, we wanted to increase the speed and quality of reporting to the grower. Growers will be able to monitor the progress of each consignment rather than waiting until its completion.”

Nick Douglas, general manager at Fruit First, adds: “There will be full traceability, 24 hours a day seven days a week. We are committed to providing consistent quality levels to consumers and an efficient service to both the grower and retailer.”

Howard Gillard of Dynamic Solutions Ltd has designed the storage and logistics system for Fruit First. He was challenged to innovate with leading edge technology in order to build a unique solution focused on automation, rationalisation and improved ergonomics. The Danish Automated storage expert Univeyor was the chosen partner to install the fully automated racked cold store (capacity 1,400 pallets or 4,200 bins). The extensive building works are being managed by Jon Wills of ICA Ltd.

Greefa along with Italian fruit specialist Longobardi will supply the grading and packing equipment. Greefa will install an eight-lane geosort grader with the latest windows based intelligent Quality System, which will grade fruit by size, colour and quality. The 42 water channels will allow the fruit to be sorted in far greater detail than existing systems. The capacity of this machine is 70- 90 bins per hour.

The packing lines will be a combination of tray packers, polybagging machines, over wrapping machines and hand lines with a capacity to produce 61 pallets of finished product per hour.

“We visited many packing facilities across Europe and explored various manufacturers before making our decision. We believe we have seen the best facilities available and we aim to better them,” says the firm’s Mark Gaskain.

“Consolidating volumes has meant we can use the most up-to-date technology to achieve a better quality service and end product,” says Day.

WORLD IN MOTION

Produce World has grown to become one of the leading suppliers within the fresh produce market and following a period of major change, instigated a full review of its current IT capabilities. This review recommended new support systems to be introduced across the company.

The stated vision is to be a leader in the fresh produce industry by managing the total supply chain to deliver a high-quality, tasty, fresh and safe product whilst exceeding their customers’ expectations through a reliable and proactive service. To enable the company to move towards its goals a well-managed IT infrastructure covering all parts of the business is being installed.

Graham Ratcliffe of M+R Solutions and David Jones, Produce World’s group IT manager, are leading the £500,000 project. “We have now completed the roll-out of the new infrastructure to ensure that we can deliver a consistent, reliable, resilient and secure service to all our customers, growers, suppliers, shareholders and business units,” says Jones.

Ratcliffe is keen to point out the project was business and not IT-led. “The starting point for the implementation of effective business systems was always the group strategy and whether or not it was aligned to the business needs. We worked closely with two IT companies and after careful consideration appointed Servo to provide us with the solution to our needs.”

Important elements of the new infrastructure are that the servers/ applications are located centrally and all the desktop computers across the sites have a standard configuration. “The roll-out of the new system commenced last July and I am pleased to report that all business units have now been completed,” Jones says. “We have made significant progress moving from cobbles to tarmac within IT, which will certainly improve our decision-making process.”

As part of this major development and as a further commitment to support systems within Produce World, the company is appointing three new business analysts to work within its IT department.

William Burgess, chief executive officer of Produce World, says: “In the last few years, we have shown good growth through both acquisition and growing market share. The business is changing and we need to ensure that across the group we have the best systems in place to improve working efficiencies and therefore improve our service to our suppliers and customers.”

FREIGHT GUIDE LOOKS AT IT PRACTICE

A new free guide has been launched by Freight Best Practice to help transport professionals better understand the range of different Information Technology (IT) systems available to the industry. It offers practical advice on how to identify IT needs, select and implement the most suitable system and also shows how to continually monitor its effectiveness once in place.

The guide entitled Information Technology for Efficient Road Freight Operations provides information on 21 different IT systems that help firms to improve their operational efficiency. Examples of systems covered include:

• Fleet Management Systems

• Product Scanning & Tracking Systems (RFID)

• Warehouse Management Systems

• Satellite Navigation Systems

• Vehicle Weighing Systems

There are many IT systems available, but this guide aims to outline how they work, the benefits, the likely costs, plus what type of operations they will suit.

The guide can be downloaded from www.freightbestpractice.org.uk

MSD BLAST

The UK’s number-four supermarket chain Morrisons launched an online application - MSD (Morrisons Supplier Database) - last year. It reports that the system has proved successful to date.

The concept, developed in Malta, is to allow the retailer to share applications and information with suppliers, hence improving its customer service, and to facilitate exchange of information about the supply chain.

Since its takeover of Safeway, Morrisons has begun to represent a significantly greater proportion of many of its suppliers’ businesses.

The introduction of MSD, says the retailer, has reduced uncertainty for suppliers, and allowed them to provide better service levels and respond to problems in the supply chain.

The insight provides Morrisons with a greater understanding of the supply chain beyond its own organisational boundaries, improving planning and response levels to problems and consumer demands.

Effective collaboration has generated higher sales through improved service levels, a reduction of inventories and a reduction in operational costs.

Strategically, Morrisons believes the benefits are that both parties work off the same base of information, which makes for more constructive collaboration. MSD has also created a base for the potential transfer of process responsibility between parties.

Martyn Jones, senior trading director, Morrisons, told media: “MSD has delivered benefits to the Trading and Supply Chain teams over the last 12 months. We will look to build on this and develop both its use with our supplier base and its functionality over the coming year.”

IT’S TIME TO SHAKE OFF THE BLAME GAME SYNDROME

One of the most difficult tasks facing management teams is bridging the gap between the expectations of the business and what realistically can be delivered by IT with the available resources. David Hurley, managing director of Anglia Business Solutions, says the time is right for a greater level of understanding.

This is not a new issue and it is a challenge that, according to the experts, is only going to get worse in the foreseeable future. In this article, it is worth examining the reasons for this as, to quote a cliché, being forewarned is being forearmed.

For a start, in a fast-moving industry such as fresh produce, market conditions are constantly changing as customers vie for market share. Then you have the business need for application integration to avoid high costs and inherent inefficiencies of data duplication.

As organisations strive for one version of the truth, the ideal solution inevitably becomes far more complex. This imposes significant strains on legacy applications that may have been developed for a bygone age.

Such circumstances invariably focus the spotlight on the IT team, which can be seen as less than co-operative in meeting the information needs of the business.

For years, the blame for this state of affairs was placed squarely on the IT team across all sectors of industry. The perception of the business managers was that IT people were insular, awkward, spoke a language of their own invention and constantly demanded expensive investments to do their jobs.

Furthermore, IT people were seen as lacking knowledge of the businesses they served and subsequently delivered solutions that failed to meet the strategic needs of the organisation.

From the IT teams’ perspective, the view was that the business managers were chronically naïve and ambitious on IT matters. This led to attempted deployments of ill- conceived projects with restrictive budgets that reflected little appreciation for the complexities of the underlying IT requirements.

When they invariably went wrong by failing to deliver the expected results, the IT team were left to pick up the pieces and carry the can for the disaster.

The bad news is that this situation is more likely to deteriorate than improve, and for understandable reasons. Businesses are increasingly compelling IT to act rapidly and nimbly to grasp new opportunities or to respond to competitive pressures.

In the general business environment, routes to markets are increasingly being driven by e-commerce applications and always on information availability. The movement towards providing products and services through web- based channels is fundamentally changing the relationship between the business and IT.

However, it is in everybody’s interests to break out of the blame game syndrome. This will mean taking a fresh look at the cultural issues that can exist between IT and business managers.

The fact is that increasingly, management teams will demand more rigorous and directly measurable business benefits from their IT investments. These are likely to be in the form of increased revenues or profits that are directly attributable to such investments.

Rather than keep the IT people at arms length, it is important that the business managers engage with them in setting the expectations for the delivery of the projected business benefits. Throughout this process, it is vital to recognise both the important role that IT can play within the business and the limitations that may exist that could hinder the expected results. This will enable both parties to define realistic contingency plans should the inherent limitations prove difficult to overcome.

We are now entering the digital information age, where powerful IT solutions that precisely meet the needs of an organisation will no longer be considered a luxury.

When it comes to competition, the winners in the fiercely competitive global marketplace will be those organisations with viable business models that can leverage the benefits of IT to provide them with enough of an edge to beat their competitors.

In such a hostile environment, the teamwork between the IT teams, their selected partners and business leaders can make the difference between success and failure.