The FrieslandCampina cooperative, with 15,300 members in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, is the fourth largest dairy organisation and the largest dairy cooperative in the world.It delivers fresh dairy products, powdered dairy products, cheese, butter and dairy-based ingredients and distributed over forty well-known brands in Europe, Asia, Africa and America.
The high-quality nutrients are captured in the waste fluxes of cheese and butter and then dried. The Nutrifeed department mixes them into end products for the cattle feed sector. Every year, Nutrifeed produces around 40,000 tons of milk substitutes and 60,000 tons of dairy concentrate for the compound feeding stuffs industry.
Wanted: an optimisation package that communicates with SAP
Because formulating and optimising a recipe requires good cooperation between R&D, logistics, purchasing and production, it is important for Nutrifeed to have a package at its disposal that supports this process and that can communicate with the company’s software, i.e; SAP in this case. Nutrifeed has already been using SAP for years for the computerisation of its accounting, purchasing, sales and stock keeping.However, the plant’s consumption of commodities was still updated using a variety of unconnected systems, which hampered the company's efforts to collect up-to-date information.
In 2005, SAP was introduced at the company, and the search began once again for a new and powerful optimisation package.After all, the old solution was on its last legs and did not support new developments.
Adifo and BESTMIX
“Adifo, which supplies such programmes to the cattle feed sector, brought at at that particular time the Windows version of BESTMIX, its successful optimisation package. Furthermore, Adifo was able to provide the necessary links with SAP,so the choice was quickly made," Johan Lemmen explains.
In April 2005, SAP started the implementation and Adifo intervened whenever a phase was completed.“Adifo has assigned a very experienced consultant to us and working together was a very smooth affair.I am not an IT person myself but I was particularly well supported,” Johan Lemmen testifies.
BESTMIX, the vital link
Before Nutrifeed is actually mixed, many calculations take place.To begin with, R&D puts together a ‘single blend’ recipe in BESTMIX in line with nutritional requirements,which still allows for some freedom.The Logistics and Purchasing department reformulates this in BESTMIX according to a ‘multiblend’ recipe taking into account existing stocks, the purchasing contracts and expected sales. They then have to wait for the analysis results for the incoming raw materials, that are often slightly different from the specifications. BLOMS is then used, i.e. Adifo’s batch optimisation module, which was adapted by Nutrifeed to work in a production department.BLOMS recalculates the recipe according to percentage deviations, taking once again into consideration the company’s own stocks.In the majority of cases, the feed can then be mixed, but sometimes a good compromise cannot be reached and R&D has to start back at the beginning. Nutrifeed also purchased the BESTMIX label module so that each bag is given a label after mixing with the end product’s exact composition.
The advantages of BESTMIX
“BESTMIX puts us in a position to make very precise calculations.Each gram can be predicted and this means higher quality for our products and guaranteed optimal growth for the young animals.”In the meantime, FrieslandCampina is looking over our shoulder with interest,” say Johan Lemmen.
He goes on to say: “Combining BESTMIX with SAP has ensured that R&D and production are now much more closely involved in the logitics and purchasing process. We work more efficiently because we are more aware of the sums involved.”
The SAP reports have more value now that the database is directly supplied with real time factory figures. This ensures that we can immediately calculate our efficiency and step in where necessary. "We are no longer running behind events.”
The label module is also a step forward. Johan Lemmen: “We used to have set labels for each end product, even though the composition could sometimes vary from one batch to another.All of the information from BLOMS now appears on the label, which we can now print off in dozens of languages. Some languages are still missing, but we are working on that as well.We can now also modify the labels ourselves in the software in line with new legislation.”
Conclusion
“BESTMIX is a very extensive and powerful standard solution that is completely trustworthy. It took a while to have everything under control but after a year there weren’t many questions any more. These days, I can solve most problems myself. We are very pleased with Adifo’s quick and spot on support. As a company in the cattle feed industry, it is impossible to do without Adifo and BESTMIX,” Johan Lemmen concludes.
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