Processes safely under control

Industry-specific ERP system simplifies daily routines at cheese manufacturer

For around 25 years, Käserebellen GmbH in Upper Bavaria has been working with Winweb's proven ERP system. Over time, increasingly modern functions of winweb-food have been used in the production and distribution of new creations as well as proven good cheese varieties. The industry software is used in various areas of the company.

The “Köhse” is the latest creation from the Käserebellen. Even Pumuckl would eat it, though he otherwise turns up his nose at cheese. And so the little goblin from the pen of Ellis Kaut adorns the company’s carrot cheese. “The retail trade asked for a product especially for children”, says sales and marketing manager Matthias Köpf, who did not need to be told twice. “And so we took carrots and cheese and invented the Köhse with them.”

No wonder Köpf listens to the retail sector, after all a full 37 percent, just under 1,700 tonnes of cheese, go into this area every year. The wholesale trade is supplied with around 1,000 tonnes. Own Storesand franchise stores receive around 15 percent of the total quantity of cheese, which roughly corresponds to the amount that is exported to specialist retailers and all over the world. Still around 230 tons per year are shipped to private customers and just under 240 tons go to market traders, gastronomy and the hotel industry.

For thatdeliver around 500 farmers from Vorarlberg, Tyrol and the Allgäu annually around 50 million liters of fresh hay milk to the company's three own dairies in Vorarlberg and Tyrol. From around 15,000 liters of milk, 240 wheels of cheese weighing six kilos are produced day after day, which for ripening, refining and Further processingbe transported to Steingaden in Upper Bavaria, where the administration of the cheese rebels is also located.

And this is where the industry software from Winweb Informationstechnologie GmbH in Aldenhoven near Aachen comes into play. The goods receipt in Steingaden is posted in the ERP system winweb-food in order to Batchesto be able to trace seamlessly. At the same time, quality assurance inspection plans are queried: Are the trucks clean? Is the temperature of the delivered cheese wheels correct? And the Qualityas desired? With the help of the ERP system, it is checked and documented. It reports errors if something does not fit.

The cheese wheels are smeared and turned in the maturation storage in Steingaden. “This is handled by a fully automated system including a robot”, says operations manager and IT head Tino Winterhalter. A maximum of 200,000 wheels of semi-hard and hard cheese can be regularly maintained in this way. Once the cheese is ripe for further processing, it is refined with herbs and spices into 60 different varieties. The exact mixtures are also stored in winweb-food as Recipesstored and posted to each type of cheese in the ERP system. As soon as the cheese is ready for consumption, the wheels are cut, packaged, labeled and the NVE labels are printed automatically to match. By means of EDI interfaceall information about the ordered goods is exchanged with trade.

Something special is the Webshoprepresent: “We have more than 100,000 customer addresses in the B2C sector,” says Köpf. To be able to process this large quantity, the online shop is connected to winweb-food. New addresses and customer orders are created here automatically. Since these are end customers, the orders change constantly. The orders are transferred directly into the system via EDI. “We already have an extremely high volume of documents,” reports Winterhalter. “That we the Price listscreate and customize via winweb-food, makes the work much easier." As Price labelera model from Leich und Mehl is used that can be integrated into the process flow of winweb-food without problems.

Orders are picked using hand-held scanners with Touch displays, which report back to the ERP system which and how many pieces of cheese should be shipped to which customers. This reduces errors and ensures faster processing. Once the ordered items have been assembled by the picker, the best-before date is checked and it is noted whether the goods are properly packaged. Only then does winweb-food grant approval for goods issue. The shipping data is automatically transmitted from the ERP system to the parcel service provider via a certified interface. The provider sends the parcel labels, which are then printed in winweb-food.

For their own branches and for the franchise stores, the Käserebellen use the Winweb store system, with which the items together with the current prices are sent directly to the Mettler- Scalesbe transferred to the various points of sale. Even ingredients and allergens are stored there in order to be able to answer customer inquiries specifically.

All documents from goods receipt to shipping are ultimately in the Document management systemfor electronic invoice verification and the recording of approval processes collected: supplier certificates, item specifications or certificates of conformity, for which there is automatically a reminder when they have expired. At the same time, the delivery notes are posted.

Tino Winterhalter has known winweb-food for around 25 years and still has ideas about what he would like to simplify next with the ERP system: “Winweb has a Storage location management, which would also bring us great added value. Maybe we can manage that in the foreseeable future." So that the "Köhse" from Pumuckl in Storage does not have to be searched for first and the picking routes can be controlled better.