Dairy Crest revamps production systems

Food manufacturer Dairy Crest is piloting an integrated manufacturing software package as part of a major consolidation of three separate legacy IT systems.

The company, which makes leading dairy products such as Clover, Yoplait and Cathedral City, is moving to a single, consolidated enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to improve production and capacity planning processes and enhance sales forecasting.

David Batts, Dairy Crest business systems director, says the Oracle ERP software undergoing trials at three of its 16 UK production sites is the second stage of a three-phase rollout to update the company’s finance, manufacturing and supply chain systems.

‘We had one system for sales, order processing and financials installed just before 2000 and have not upgraded because it was so heavily customised,’ he said.

‘The manufacturing was basically unsupported. And there was no benefit from moving to a later package because we would have to pay for the cost of modifying the expensive custom interfaces between the different systems and the associated risk each time we upgraded.’

Batts says the phased rollout allows the company to ensure the new ERP software supports the existing business processes at each stage of replacement.

‘Work started on the financial systems in November last year, and we did the formal justification for the manufacturing system this March,’ he said.

‘It is our intention to go live with the sales order processing system, which includes the supply chain, in 2006.’

Dairy Crest is working with Oracle Consulting to install the new system but will manage it in-house in the long term.

Batts says the business benefits add to the case for updating the ageing technology.

‘We know, for example, that with better demand planning we can cut a lot of wastage and improve stock control, as well as ultimately achieve better execution for our customers,’ he said.

‘But, above all else, the reduced complexity, increased consistency and consolidation means we will have the ability to introduce standard business processes across the business.’