The Business Challenge
In the last two years, Sunfresh have doubled their manufacturing footprint enabling significant growth in their product range and the scope of customers who include major supermarkets. With the increase in output and diversity of salads, the need to further automate the business to maximize profit and minimise wastage has been critical. Sunfresh had relied on the allocation of work through a paper trail system. The implementation of a fully integrated accounting and manufacturing system has allowed real-time performance across all areas of the business to be captured, ensuring daily operations are at optimum speed and effort.
Choosing a hardware partner to meet the demands of the factory floor
Sunfresh utilises a suite of solutions designed to streamline business processes specifically for the food & beverage industry. “The initial roll out of the system was predominantly for use by office based staff so no specific hardware was needed,” Sunfresh’s Chief Financial Officer Chris Whelan commented. “The implementation module for use on the factory floor created an additional challenge because we required equipment that could perform and survive within that setting.”
“We were initially recommended two hardware suppliers. After initial enquiries it became apparent to us that APC Technology were the only choice because they could meet the demands of the food production environment at Sunfresh.”
Chris continued, “The locality of APC Technology meant they were able to come on site and really get an understanding of our business and what we were looking for. They have a proven pedigree of supplying rugged solutions to the food industry and their expertise resulted in an adjustment in our requirements. Based on their feedback on how to create a positive end user experience which we really wanted to achieve for our staff, we took on board their recommendations which have proved a good decision.”
The first three panel PCs were installed in the factory’s low risk areas. An additional four units were then installed in the high care areas which have the most rigorous cleaning regimes.
User experience
Chris commented on the roll out and adoption. “It is always a challenge to make major procedural overhauls and in this case we were asking our factory staff to move away from a paper based system that has always been in place, to an automated system. This meant a change in mind set for our staff and the need for additional training to get up to speed. The installation of the right hardware has resulted in a positive end user experience with a notable mention of the highly responsive touchscreen which has ensured a positive adoption rate. APC Technology have proven to be an excellent hardware partner. The quality of their products have exceeded our expectation plus the locality of our two businesses offers us lower risk levels if we are faced with any potential downtime in the future.”
