Fresh fruit company Poupart has installed StoneGate, a network
security solution from Stonesoft Corp (HEX: SFT1V), an innovative provider of security and business continuity solutions.
Poupart has invested in the resilience of its supply chain IT to ensure its 120 employees and 100 remote users experience continuous uptime and can exchange EDI (electronic data interchange) and XML messages securely.
Poupart Ltd has been in operation since the 19th century, supplying fruit to retailers and other organisations. The group is dedicated to ethical trading practices, and supplies multiple markets through its companies including Poupart Citrus, BerryWorld and Norton Folgate. Its customers include Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose.
The company chose Stonesoft following a recommendation from Stonesoft partner Ramesys, a managed services and security services IT provider.
With deliveries taking place throughout the day and overnight, and orders being processed daily, the fresh produce supply chain requires continuous operation, and Poupart has implemented Stonesoft’s StoneGate to ensure communications with customers, suppliers and other members of the supply chain, including invoices, orders, delivery confirmations and payments, are not affected by network disruptions or security breaches.
Poupart supplies its IT user base of more than 300 users with Microsoft web-based collaboration and Business Process Management (BPM) platforms Microsoft SharePoint and BizTalk; Microsoft Dynamics Nav, web hosting, web access, email and EDI.
StoneGate will ensure that connection to these critical applications remains active at all times.
Network security platform StoneGate provides extremely high levels of security, secure remote access and allows for multiple internet connections from different ISPs. StoneGate’s Multi-Link Technology and ISP Multi-homing techniques provide organisations with highly available ISP connectivity in a simple, straightforward and cost-effective manner.
Stonesoft allows the use of multiple ISP connections simultaneously, providing an always connected service via any of the available connections, and also ensuring that traffic is always carried via the quickest route, without the intervention of the IT department. Multi-Link supports many types of internet links, including ISDN, DSL, leased lines, modem connection and even satellite, guaranteeing constant internet connectivity.
Poupart’s infrastructure manager Robert Hamilton explained: “Our vision is to be the leader of IT systems within the fresh produce sector, and security will play a major part in our strategy.
“Stonesoft has proven to be an excellent supplier, as has Ramesys, and I see both playing a major part in the future developments of Poupart’s IT infrastructure.
“The deciding factor was the ability to have multiple internet connections. Stonesoft’s membership of the virtual private network consortium was also a positive factor.
“The platform is easy to use and, following a day’s training, we have been able to bring the management of our IT security in-house. Stonesoft can offer technical complexity while keeping management simple,” Hamilton added.
Ash Patel, UK and Ireland country manager for Stonesoft, said: “Detecting vulnerabilities early and enabling an efficient supply chain with secure and resilient connections is key in an FMCG sector like fresh produce.
“We are pleased that Poupart has realised benefits from the first day of the StoneGate deployment. Dual ISPs have enabled employees to increase their performance, and remote access is not only quicker, but also more reliable and easier to use.”
ON SITE AT EMMETT
The launch of a new On Site Management System (OSM) has helped Encore Personnel’s On Site division win a new account within the fresh produce industry.
Vegetable supplier Emmett UK’s HR department said: “We have found the system introduced by Encore Personnel to be a great benefit to our business - not only do we have more control of the contract as a whole, but we also have the confidence of a legal and ethical service.”
A unique web-based recruitment and labour management system has been custom-built by Encore to provide clients with a method to manage their temporary staff more efficiently and to supply a transparent audit trail. From candidate registration through to invoicing, the secure system allows total process management and control. Clients have access to real-time management information, allowing them to perform live tracking on shift head counts and monitor performance.
UK-based recruiter Encore Personnel Services supplies and manages high-volume temporary staffing solutions to warehousing and production businesses throughout the UK. The success of this innovation has helped Encore to extend its service to many fresh produce clients, which now account for a third of its turnover.
A bespoke service is offered with the package, including a dedicated On Site manager, staff training and development and SHL testing.
On Site divisional manager Dan Carlin said: “With the ever-changing employment regulatory environment, we have created a way of giving our clients and their customers complete peace of mind. They are absolutely assured that they are receiving a legal and ethical supply of workers. With OSM, our clients can audit Encore in real time from the comfort of their desk to ensure all workers provided have the correct working documentation and have been through the correct induction procedures.”
FARMLAND FOR SALE
A new online marketplace has been launched by the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation (AMC), to give buyers nationwide access to the ever-tightening supply of farmland.
The UK Land and Farm property website - www.uklaf.co.uk - has been developed to provide farmers with a one-stop shop for all their needs related to finding land and rural property in the UK.
Dedicated to the agricultural sector, only listing properties with three acres and more, the website brings together farms and rural properties from almost 50 of the UK’s national and regional agents.
Searchable by location, price, size and market status, 500 properties are already featured, divided into the following seven categories: farms and estates; country homes; woodland; equestrian; horticulture; leisure; and rural business.
Jonathan Allright, senior manager network and operations, said: “At AMC, we really understand the financing of farmland, and that is why we are moving to fill this gap in the market. Until now, there has been no facility dedicated solely to the sale of land that allows potential buyers to search on a nationwide basis.”
CATERING TO MOBILE WORKERS A TOP PRIORITY FOR FRESH PRODUCE COMPANIES
This month, Anglia Business Solutions’ development director Richard Jones looks at new developments in the field of mobile handheld technologies, and assesses what they could mean for the fresh produce industry.
Market Intelligence firm IDC expects the global mobile worker population to increase from 758.6 million in 2006 to more than one billion in 2011, representing just over 30 per cent of the worldwide workforce.
Working in fresh produce throws up some unique challenges for IT. A small percentage of the fresh produce workforce uses desktop or laptop PCs, with the majority of staff out working in the field, packhouse or other non-office-based locations.
Any form of stock management, technical or financial system has to cater for the very fluid situation that we see every day in our industry. This is compounded by the fact that traditional systems just do not fit this environment, and struggle to keep up with what is going on in the packhouse or field as the crop is cut.
In the fresh produce industry, we are seeing major advances in the field of computer mobility; advances that lend themselves to this fast-moving environment. Solutions are now emerging to tackle the unique demands of fresh produce mobility, to ensure a good fit from a technology perspective that will provide a solid return on investment. This article will walk you through how components are coming to the fore to help solve the typical issues.
The devices
Terminals in use in packhouses are normally large, clunky and tend to offer really limited functionality.
We are now seeing major improvements in what can be done with the device hardware. With the commoditisation of high-quality colour screen mobile phones and digital cameras, this technology is gradually finding its way into the world of rugged mobile devices. Devices like the Symbol MC75, or Psion Tecklogix Ikon, offer ruggedised high-performance mobile PCs with barcode readers, in-built digital cameras and high-quality, full-colour screens.
Having such high-performance devices available opens up enormous possibilities, such as being able to attach photographs to quality control (QC) reports as damage on produce is detected. Additionally, these devices can be multi-functional. For example, the same handheld device can perform standard warehousing tasks, such as receipting, picking and putting away, as well as QC, waste recording or label checking. A year ago, a typical device came with 128MB of RAM; this is tiny by today’s standards. Using low-cost digital camera memory cards, it is now possible to equip a device with 8GB of storage for around £30.
But the handheld is only part of the story; what about printing labels or taking weight measurements? A mobile printer more routinely used by a traffic warden can be brought to bear in far nicer applications for fresh produce. QC reports can be printed as they happen, using a belt mounted printer such as a Zebra QL 420+. Weighing scales or pressure testers can now be linked directly to forklift mounted devices, so a forklift driver simply hits a button on a touch screen and the weight is captured electronically using wireless technology.
Most of the technology that we are seeing on these ruggedised handheld devices can also be used on the phones. Applications such as providing KPI dashboards to a line manager’s phone, or displaying a list of orders and receipts for the day, involve little more than building a website that can be accessed on a mobile phone.
The infrastructure
Of course, all this mobile hardware needs to send information back to a central point. In the past, this has meant installing expensive proprietary radio receivers not suited to the high moisture content of a fresh produce environment.
There has been an explosive growth in low-cost wireless networking hardware, fuelled by the demand to have wireless broadband networks in the home. It is also possible and inexpensive to use the public phone network to make mobile applications work, requiring only a phone SIM card in the handheld device. All the major phone companies offer flat rate data contracts for around £17 a month, which is a very attractive proposition.
So we are seeing better handheld devices, and easier and cheaper ways of hooking these systems up to a central server.
The software
Mobile software can at best be described as basic for the past few years. Mobile lines of business applications amount to a tiny sector of the market compared to the millions of mobile phone users. Providing the tools for building mobile solutions has not to date been a focus for the giants of the software industry.
However, the proprietary locked-down software technology of the past is gradually moving into what we have seen in other areas such as the internet or office application space. The web has seen an explosion in open and easy-to-adopt ways of writing software; namely writing HTML code or building applications with tools like Visual Basic or Java. The same is happening for mobile application development. It is now possible to put software programs on the mobile devices themselves. Technologies such as the .NET Compact Framework or Java Micro Edition (J2ME) make it easier to make the best use of device features in a way that does not require software developers to learn a propriety set of skills. In the past, building the software interfaces from a mobile application has been achieved by building flat files that are fed in batch from one system to another. This approach is difficult, time-consuming and prone to error. Now it is becoming commonplace to provide direct real-time access to backend systems, such as ERP solutions.
The investments that companies like Microsoft are now putting into these areas make it very straightforward to add these facilities into the next generation of fresh produce systems.
The return on investment
It is great talking about these tools and technologies, but how do they help the bottom line? As you would expect, there is a direct impact on reducing labour costs. Efficiencies in the packhouse can be dramatically improved; an obvious example is the time taken to book in stock or pick produce for dispatch. We are starting to see the emergence of “paperless” packing and production operations. Managers manage by exceptions, and viewing KPI information rather than trawling through what has happened each day. The identification of problems is no longer in the domain of a line manager checking his email every 20 minutes. Alerts arrive by text message.
Streamlining the operational processes by adding complementary mobile technology can keep the business running in a way that directly benefits the bottom line.
The future
So what’s next? Where is this all heading? Are we going to see packhouses with the lights switched off and robots doing all the work, just like the automotive industry?
Well, maybe in the long run but, in an industry such as ours, the handling, grading and packing of products is still a very labour- intensive and carefully controlled operation. Devices will improve and software will evolve. The “Microsoft Office” of the fresh produce sector is bound to emerge as time progresses.
We will see mobility being an essential part of all aspects of the operation for recording what really goes on, rather than retrospectively trying to re-create this information, but some companies still have a long way to go.
I have painted the landscape of how mobility coupled with modern real-time backend systems can be of great benefit to our industry. The systems described can work to help organisations in a way that is complementary, rather than a burden on the workforce. Next time you send a text message on your mobile, think what that large colour screen could be showing you.