Smithfield Foods, a global food producer, has selected Kewill (KWL), a leading provider of global solutions for the dynamic supply network, to provide an Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) system to help it process and fulfil customer orders.
Kewill MessageBroker is an end-to-end managed B2B integration service, which is always online so orders are received as soon as they are sent. This enables the company to process order quickly, while notifications are received via email to confirm an order has arrived.
"Our previous system did not provide us with enough flexibility to enable us to make improvements," said Ralph Farrow, Smithfield Foods' IT Manager. "Moreover, the data could not be validated against our back office systems as the system could not produce the necessary control reports for our finance department. The system from Kewill is much more user-friendly and because it is online we get real-time status on orders, meaning we are spending less time dealing with enquiries regarding the whereabouts of an order."
The company has also extended the Kewill system to its third party logistics provider, Innovate, which will enable Smithfield to automatically receive orders from smaller customers electronically. These orders had previously been manually entered.
Ralph Farrow said, "We are now instigating a project to extend the EDI link to the warehouse. This will cut down on our time spent to process orders and eliminate errors."
Jacquie Boast, Chief Operating Officer at Kewill Europe, said, "By automating key processes across the supply chain, Smithfield's staff can more efficiently satisfy customer requests on the whereabouts of their orders in the supply chain."
About Smithfield Foods
Smithfield Foods Ltd is the UK arm of Virginia based Smithfield Foods Inc, the biggest pork processing company in the world.
Formed in 2004, from a merger of The Norwich Food Company and Ridpath PEK, Smithfield can now supply the retail, food processing and foodservice industries with a comprehensive range of fresh, frozen, canned and deli meats, branded or own-label.
www.smithfieldfoods.co.uk