Doing Nothing: The Cost

Compliance, traceability, and accountability are top priorities in the ever-changing world of food & beverage, pharma, and biotech. So, what can companies do in order to evolve with the changing standards and ways of operating? 

First, we’ve got to admit something together; that things are changing in these industries and that doing nothing about it within our everyday operations will cost us very heavily sooner or later. 

Great. Now that we agree, we can move on to what’s changing, how it is changing, and what we can do to adapt to change in these areas. 

What’s Changing & What’s Needed: 

With changing compliance, there will always be a need for changed methods of how we operate as businesses. Companies must be able to provide accurate information quickly and reliably to reach their industry standards (find some common standards for these industries here). Organizations need to focus their efforts around a single source of truth for their information. A fully integrated ERP system would be ideal, but organizations have already pieced together many solutions to make up their “system.” As long as companies can track and manage information across many different departments, employees, products/ services, suppliers, and customers, a full ERP solution won’t be necessary. Maybe just something that can search and find these data points as needed. The system must also handle processes and acts on requests (retrieving components from a specific location and take it to a delivery point) with little or no human intervention, to ensure quality of data and free up organizations to do what they do best: run, innovate, and grow their operation. 

The Costs: 

More than ever, customers and end consumers are demanding visibility. From where their food is processed, how it is delivered, and even what farm it came from. With paper systems and outdated excel spreadsheets, you’ll never be able to deliver the information your customers deserve. This could cause customers to dwindle and prevent new customers from coming to you; costing you time and money. Many organizations suffer from old hardware and software that has been running their operation for years and simply can’t afford replacing every computer system throughout the corporation. 

Solutions: 

This is forcing manufacturers to evolve in one way or another. Many companies are turning to “out of the box” or “off the shelf” solutions. Yes, this includes us. There are many organizations that will either build custom solutions or have plug-n-play style software that allow organizations to quickly and reliably transfer and collect information. Going paperless and adapting to the technological world is a primary component of extending a digitized supply chain to customers and suppliers, as well as running a more efficient, profitable operation. Navigate the modern world with modern solutions. 

For more information on where to find these, click here to see some “off the shelf” or “plug-n-play” options.