Product quality, production excellence and long-term economic performance depend on various factors, some of which can be monitored and managed within the processing company itself, many come from external suppliers and partners.
Suppliers are required to guarantee origin, raw materials production, compliance with the rules governing the transport and regarding of general rules in force. Information is received in various ways and managed using different tools, making it difficult to find and analyze even in cases where the company has all the useful data internally.
Even within the company, heterogeneous data is collected during the various stages of production: from reception, processing, transformation, packaging and storage, often from various sources (IOT, manuals, integration with other systems) making the traceability process difficult and not very immediate.
All these phases can be monitored and/or controlled by digital technological devices. Process transparency obtained allows to reach high levels of operational efficiency, product quality, food safety, conferment of improved qualities in terms of nutrition, environmental impact, waste reduction, cost-effectiveness and speed of recalls.
A massive amount of data obatined from the continuous collection of events that occur outside and inside the company, allows, if managed with appropriate technological tools, to monitor events in real time, but also to carry out sophisticated analyzes thanks to the interrelationships between data heterogeneous and data analysis tools as well as establishing collaborative models of supply chain management. These models are essential tools for achieving supply chain objectives that look at new emerging challenges (sustainability, resilience, product-service paradigm management, waste reduction, supply chain operational excellence, circular economy policies, relationship with the consumer).
WHY iCHAIN FOR FOOD PROCESSING?
COLLECT AND SHARE DATA
ALONG THE SUPPLY CHAIN
- Systematic and structured collection of data from new sources
- Integration with automatic systems (eg: sensors / IoT)
- Integration with existing external systems
- Databases management shared with involved stakeholders
- Interoperability based on standard data format (GS1).
DATA ANALYSIS AND
SUPPLY CHAIN MONITORING
- Process and supply chain graphic representation
- Automatic graphs display tools
- Dashboards for the detection of indicators in real time
- Access to data via web and mobile app
DECISION MAKING
- Creation of Performance Indicators (KPIs)
- Advanced methods of analysis based on Artificial Intelligence
- Advanced analysis algorithms (statistics and predictive models)
- Information security and immutability
What operational advantages do I get with the use of iChain?
iChain can be used for various business processes, even implemented gradually:
- manage products and / or batches traceability from raw material to finished product, at different levels of granularity of information;
- share data between supply chain operators in order to obtain real-time information and improve reaction times;
- obtain information regarding suppliers performance;
- • homogeneously manage products and processes information and be able to easily interoperate with customers;
- improve internal consumption, transport and logistics processes;
- associate all the documentation of interest also for the single event, both at the lot level and at the single item level;
- • provide consumers with transparent information.
How do I measure iChain benefits?
The use of iChain as a traceability and transparency system constitutes, in addition to a system to minimize food waste and costs, also a greater credibility of brand image towards consumers, business partners and the community in general.