At ready-meal specialist Freshcook, integrating information between different systems was causing administrative overheads to rise, customer demands for product traceability were expensive to meet by using manual processes, and full disaster recovery services were lacking. Solution? Use System i to run the Complete ERP package as the strategic business management platform.

 
Key benefits have been that customer audits of product traceability can be completed within the hour, using automated processes at much lower costs, and that daily profit and loss accounts can be produced overnight for all operations without manual intervention, allowing managers to gain much closer control of the business and reduce costs.

Freshcook prepares and sells ready-to-cook meals, provided as own-label products to large retail groups. From the company’s foundation in 2004, with six products, 100 staff and sales turnover of around £1m, revenues have increased to about £50m, and there are now 400 staff producing over 70 product ranges.

Originally formed as a joint venture, Freshcook had inherited two different business systems, and the effort involved in sharing data between production, financial and related departments was gradually rising. Paul Berryman, IT manager, says: “With best-of-breed and ERP systems running alongside each other, not to mention general office productivity solutions, we had a lack of clarity throughout the business. It took increasing amounts of time to reconcile figures between systems, which we would rather have spent on productive business management.”

Freshcook chose the ERP route, and selected to expand its Complete ERP solution, which at that time managed the manufacturing and logistics divisions. The decision was to switch entirely to Complete ERP software for 50 users, implementing financials, purchasing and a range of integrated solutions.

Before implementing the ERP software, the team considered its choice of server platform, looking for reliability, capacity, performance and, in particular for this fast-growth business, scalability. With all business-critical data on a single system, Berryman also wanted a robust solution that had full disaster recovery capabilities.

“Freshcook selected the System i platform as the best server environment for the Complete ERP software. We could take advantage of the excellent stability and performance of the System i server, and implement a full disaster recovery plan to protect the business,” says Berryman. With assistance from Business Partner RedSky IT and Avnet Partner Solutions, Freshcook selected a System i for the expanded Complete ERP implementation.

“The Complete product started life in the mid-80s, written in RPG for the AS/400,” says Christian Evans, ERP technical support analyst, RedSky IT. “We were then known as CP Programming Services, subsequently CP Business Solutions, and competed in the market against the likes of JBA.”

Today there are some 40 customers operating on a variety of i170, 270, 800 520 and even 515 models. Freshcook has an i800 with 300 CPW. As a modular package, typical licence costs for 30 connected users are £20,000. The current version is v4.1.

“We are working on a browser-based version of the product (v4.2), developed using IBM’s WebSphere and HATS product, WDHT,” says Evans.

“The new server offered a massive increase in performance, even taking into account the increased functionality of the full Complete ERP solution,” says Berryman. “We have been able to bring all the business critical software into a single, highly reliable and secure system.”

Replacing the hard slog of data integration with a ready-integrated solution on System i has produced dramatic business results. “With Complete ERP on System i handling all our business processes, real-time information is always easily available,” says Berryman. “We are able to achieve daily profit and loss reporting, an enormous business advantage in the food industry. Each night, the system reconciles all the previous day’s activities and provides managers with detailed insight into trading. This means we can identify potential issues and move to rectify them immediately, rather than wait until the end of the week.”

Freshcook is also able to respond faster to product traceability requirements. According to EU and UK legislation, all production elements and processes must be fully auditable, and Freshcook’s own customers expect the company to demonstrate compliance with traceability legislation. Hitherto, compliance exercises required a significant investment in manpower and time. “We are able to record and securely preserve all the necessary product traceability information, and generate complete reports within the hour. Again, by using Complete ERP on System i we are able to provide better service to customers and reduce our operational costs,” says Berryman.

Alongside the Complete ERP solution, Freshcook also runs SAA Reims electronic data interchange (EDI) services on the System i. Suppliers are able to send and receive orders, place invoices and receive payments, linking directly to the Complete ERP software.

“Given the exceptional capacity of the System i to handle the workload, we are considering web-enabling access for suppliers, customers and other partners,” says Berryman. “We are also looking at integrating RFID tracking with the solution, also handled on the System i server. Within the business environment, IT is about ease of accessibility to information, security and stability, and System i brings all these benefits to Freshcook.”

 
Frank Booty, industry reporter.