Why SI’s Food ERP Provides the Heartbeat for Farmison & Co
Bringing in the right Food ERP system and partner is one of the biggest decisions that a business must make as it plans for growth.
As Lee Simmonds, co-founder of Farmison & Co recently explained to SI, it’s the ceiling that must be broken through to future-proof operations.
That step to becoming a truly real-time business is really significant, and it’s one of the growing pains that you need to go through to future-proof your business.
Without an ERP system in place, it would be impossible to keep everything true, scale, and maintain full traceability throughout the supply chain.
That’s why it’s vitally important to find an ERP partner who will invest time to fully understand every process, your operational complexity, and build an infrastructure that will encompass all aspects of your business.
After all, an ERP shouldn’t be a straight jacket or force you to change your business to fit with the way it works.
I believe, an ERP partnership should be like a marriage; it should last for your company’s lifetime.
A good ERP system not only provides the glue to keep everything cohesive.
It should be become the beating heart of your business, enabling pulse-readings to be taken in real-time about how your business and factory operations are performing.
Future-proofing is vital. At Farmison and Co, we’re evolving and, as we do so, this presents new dynamics both to our company and for our staff.
That’s the point Farmison & Co is now at and it’s SI’s Integreater ERP system that’s allowed us to reach that point.
Whatever we throw at Integreater ERP, it can handle it.
Lee Simmonds, co-founder, Farmison & Co
Why Farmison & Co chose SI
The one thing that really struck us, when we were looking for an ERP partner, was that SI was not fazed by the complexity of what we were doing.
Whether it’s the number of breeds that we manage, the number of product SKUs, the maturation – all those things could be accommodated within the system.
SI understands the process of producing meat and already works with many of the biggest names within the meat sector.
The SI team quickly gained our confidence because they were straight talking, and clearly demonstrated that they understood our business, the meat management and production sector.
SI’s whole business has been geared towards streamlining those processes. The team understands the complexity of taking a whole carcase and breaking it down into many different permutations, through to what becomes an end product that’s then shipped to a customer.
When it came to the integration, SI was very hands-on. Its team basically camped out within the business for a good couple of weeks to make sure that the system wasn’t going to fail – failure wasn’t an option.
Having a partner who also understands these things is incredibly important. Our team fully respected that SI was working really hard to get the system implemented. And it did go pretty seamlessly.
I can best describe life before SI as very manual. It wasn’t system-led, it wasn’t data led; it was a very manual operation. Of course, it still worked because of the commitment of the staff.
However, when we implemented SI’s ERP, and as SI had put in the groundwork with our employees, the whole team was empowered.
Now, using the system is second nature to our team and each of them recognises that the technology has made their working lives far easier. And they all understand the system far better than I do; they know how it works inside out, and that’s the sign of a good ERP system.
SI’s ERP facilitates the whole shift at Farmison & Co and, seeing that change, compared to how we used to operate, is incredible.
Lee Simmonds, co-founder, Farmison & Co
The importance of a great partnership
SI’s way of doing business and expertise proved to be vitally important when we were deciding who we were going to partner with.
By taking the time to understand our business and how we did things, and asking lots of questions, SI quickly gained the confidence of the team.
I don’t have any regrets about the choice we made. The partnership is actually working out very positively.
Of course, as SI’s ERP is a modular system, we’ve been able to cherry pick the modules based on what’s important to our business.
Farmison & Co has complexity, as we have a vast range of products, backed out by breed. This creates multiple permutations of products, but SI’s ERP handles it incredibly well.
Whatever we throw at the Integreater system – all the permutations of cuts and breeds – it can handle it. And I’ve got no doubts that SI and the system can accommodate all our requests.
Since we started, all the changes that we’ve requested have been accommodated and we’re now seeing the results of those changes. The people that we’ve dealt with from SI have really taken their time to trouble-shoot issues to find the best solutions.
Every cut counts
With Integreater ERP, you can see exactly where you are in that day’s production, and with a great level of accuracy.
Everything’s in real-time, which is fantastic; we’ve never had that level of information as a business before. For instance, what percentage of that day’s cut has already been produced and passed to the despatch department.
Now, we can see exactly in real-time where we’re at, and that wouldn’t have been possible without SI.
I know that our partnership with SI is right and that Integreater ERP can cater for what I can envisage what we will be doing over the next five years.
Lee Simmonds, co-founder, Farmison & Co.
Immaculate traceability
An important diffentiator for us, when it comes to Integreater ERP, is that it provides immaculate traceability. For instance, we can demonstrate that if we’re supplying a 32-day aged sirloin steak, we can trace that product right back to the farm and individual Dexter cow.
SI’s system enables us to provide all of the evidence and facilitates the trace process. It’s all about authenticity. And, if anything should go wrong, we will always have the reassurance that we can pinpoint the exact reason thanks to the traceability.
At Farmison & Co, the ERP also delivers an understanding of the flight path for when the farmer is taking a particular animal to slaughter, where it’s coming from and the expected weights, and when we can expect the primals to arrive at our premises.
Everything that arrives at goods-in is assigned a unique trace ID and this means, from that point onwards, we can trace that product, no matter how it’s used. That’s only possible with the SI ERP system in place.
Control of waste management is key to improving margins within any business. You need to understand why the waste has occurred, how it can be best used and how can it be minimised in the future.
Integreater provides all the visibility we need to control our costs and adjust our processes, to minimise waste. We can see precisely what we’re buying in, how much has been bought at the right time and cost, and that at we’re intaking at a true cost.
For more accurate forecasting, Integreater ERP also helps us to plan stock levels and track demand for products. The ERP system allows us to prioritize and, and truly get ahead.
We can see exactly what needs to be cut for today, how best to break down carcases to minimise any waste. And it also allows us to pre-cut for the next day, which is fantastic.
It also helps set the discipline within the team, as they know that they’re focusing on the right things at the right time during their shift pattern.
Looking forward to a bright future
The future for Farmison & Co looks really positive because I know that we’ve gone through that growing pain of bringing on board our ERP system.
I know that the partnership with SI is right. I know that the system can cater for what I can envisage, and what the team envisages, we’re going to be doing in the next five years.
We’ve done the hard part, which was getting the system implemented. Now it’s all about scale – and we’re ready. We’re ready to grow, and we’re ready to meet the demands of the great British meat-eating public.
We’re match fit and we’re in the Premier League.
I don’t for one minute worry that the SI ERP system will not be able to deal with anything that we’ve got within our business flight plan. I’m totally confident that it will cope.
Lee Simmonds, co-founder of Farmison & Co, spoke to SI’s Sheryn Moore in October 2021.
