While a resurgence in the U.S. beer scene makes for some exotic brews, things aren't all roses for breweries. In fact, there are more challenges than ever.
Illes Seasonings & Flavors has made various food ingredients for more than 85 years. They’re a privately held company that has a proud legacy of innovating and developing unique flavors with an entrepreneurial spirit. Based out of Dallas, Texas, Illes has expanded into a national food powerhouse that continues to provide quality products and excellent customer service within their industry.
Today they work with the largest retailers, food processors, national restaurant chains, and food manufacturers across the nation. This sustained growth, however, presented a manufacturing challenge for Illes. As a result, they looked to PlanetTogether to optimize their production schedule.
Illes went through a 6-month Proof of Concept before committing to PlanetTogether. Following their purchase, they experienced immediate results. “Before it took hours to schedule [our production] manually because scheduling was based on reports, now it only takes seconds,” said Les Howell, Executive Director of IT.
Following implementation, communication improved between planners and departments. Other enhancements include a better response time for instances such as expedited production, order change, and capacity availability requests. After seeing early results, Illes can now have a greater focus on long-term planning and scheduling.
“PlanetTogether’s software is by far the best and most encompassing planning software package offered today,” said Ed Czysz, Illes’ Production Scheduling Manager. By implementing planning software, Illes can react swiftly to an unforeseen impact that may potentially affect the system. Drawing information from all departments within the company, the scheduling tool helps expose areas where processes are weak. Namely, the Gantt chart tool with label features made quick work of identifying late/early jobs, material shortages, and job statuses. With the help of planning and scheduling software, Illes continues to be at the forefront of technology as an industry leader in food production.
Provided a total solution that satisfied our business needs:
» Handle Jobs with multiple Process Stages
» Automatically create Plan Jobs
» Automatic schedule jobs to be completed before demand need dates
» Automatically sequence jobs on a resource machine
» Easily move jobs from one resource to another like resource
» Manage jobs between multiple plants
» Manage resource capacity
Business Growth:
» 20% increase in sales over past 24 months
Increased Complexity:
» Products requiring multiple resource
» Product mix, allergens, religious dietary laws, FSMA
Ross Limitations:
» Manual job creation & job maintenance process
» Limited view of capacity
» Increased clerical workload in Planning Department
» Not enough time for proactive planning
While a resurgence in the U.S. beer scene makes for some exotic brews, things aren't all roses for breweries. In fact, there are more challenges than...
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