Food
Chain Management System
The computerized
system which holds and keep the digitized record of all the tiny and vital
processes including farming food, keeping them into bifurcated categorized raw
material, make available to factories and shape it to the final product to the
customer. Food chain management system is all about the food supply and its
management. There are numerous companies which provide the services of FCMS.
McDonalds, KFC, Nutrilite, Dominos, Pizza Hut, Reliance Fresh, Star Bazar, Futurebazaar,
Reliance Mart, are one of the giant FCMS companies working in India. The
progression of FCMS starts from the food market yard. Farmers vend their sowed
product to the massive corporate companies. The FMCS keeps all the track record
of this raw material including its prices, weights and many other properties.
Then this raw material is ready to convert and start towards the final shape of
the product. So the system decides the quantity of raw material for the each
factory as per the demand of that particular product. FCMS also keeps the
record of production, distribution and retails. To understand the process of
the FCMS, we need to understand and study the process of the any one commercial
giant. So let me elucidate the process of Reliance Fresh. Reliance Fresh buys
the vegetables, fruits and other goods from the farmers and comprises them
under the Reliance brand and sells it to the clienteles. Reliance Fresh itself
contains sub FCM systems under one roof of own FCMS. They offer many FCMS
products like Maggi, Nutrilite, Parle, Britannia, Sunfeast, and many more. The
computerized system gives the flexibility to maintain the food and its
distribution and sells. It is easy to find the total sales amount, analyze the
data and procedure that to make an edifying grid of retail.
Food is the critical
item in supply chain management. Essential guidelines pertaining to
distribution need to be strictly followed by respective food or Beverages
Company to reach to the consumer market. There has to be other major roles in
food chain whether it is processed food or unprocessed food. There is always
urgent need to take actions towards process integration along with the value
chain to the organization of flexible and responsive network. Cooperation and
integration could focus on many different functions such as planning, quality
management, research, logistics, knowledge, sales, procurement, information
management, marketing, packaging, production, etc.
The Actors who
represents their active or passive role in Food Chain Management are suppliers,
primary producers, processors, manufactures and retailers which have consumers
as the final customers. Its strategic development and operational improvements
involves long term commitment and major investment. A specific strategic
development concerns about huge amount investment in electronic network for
tracking and tracing food. Even the major concern is to provide cost effective
and consistent food product to consumers without affecting basic price. It is
crucial for organization to build a low-cost supply chain operation which takes
costs out of the system and in turn gives them greater pricing flexibility in
the marketplace. Reliable and cost effective supply chain management plays an
important role in the area of cost. Today’s scenario gives us roughly idea
about nearly 40% of the customers place their order either from home or office.
Promotional cost also plays important role in food chain management. Instead of
parking huge investment in prime locations they need to manage call centers to
bring better result. The organization needs to effectively distribute job
responsibilities to various processors. The other way is to outsource the
partially processed product from different processors but it might increase the
cost of finished product.
An Organization needs
to focus on changing consumer needs. In order to sustain in capricious
environment they must have to adapt new developments in technology, production,
management, communication, organization or cooperation and on the establishment
of trust between all stakeholders along the food chain including consumer.
Here below is the model
of Food Chain from Farm to Store which shows us what is exactly going on
practically?
Food Chain Management
System (FCMS) has four stages:
1. e
procurement
E-procurement (electronic procurement)or
supplier exchange is the business to business or business-to-consumer or business-to-government purchase and sale of supplies, work, and services through
the Internet as well as other information and
networking systems, such as electronic data interchange and enterprise resource planning.
E-procurement is done with a software application that includes features for
supplier management and complex auctions. The new generation of e-Procurement
is now on-demand or a software-as-a-service (SaaS). The e-procurement value chain
consists of indent management, eTendering, eAuctioning, vendor management,
catalogue management, and contract management. Indent management is the
workflow involved in the preparation of tenders. This part of the value chain
is optional, with individual procuring departments defining their indenting
process. In works procurement, administrative approval and technical sanction
are obtained in electronic format. In food procurement, indent generation
activity is done online.
2. Warehousing
3. Transportation
4. Retailing
RETAIL POSSESSION IN INDIA
Ideology in the retail
commerce is considered to be exclusive element of the Indian neighborhood
hundred and thousands of bazaars, mandis and haats are located across the full
length and span of India
by people’s self-management and managerial capability. From weekly markets, to
fairs and village melas, to the appearance of the mom-and-pop stores (kirans)
across region, to the organization of public allocation through ration shops,
finally the commercial retail formats stepped into the attention witch include
restricted product outlet, supermarkets and hypermarkets, shopping malls and
subdivision stores. India’s
retail sector countryside has been undergoing a conversion and is the fastest
increasing sector in the Indian economy. The entire landscape of organized
retail in India
has experienced the varied formats of food retailing such as the supermarkets,
hypermarkets, departmental stores and neighborhood.
FARM TO FORK MODEL
The
path from food source to the point of final service is called the farm to fork
continuum. The source is where the food item originates. This
could be a farm where produce is grown, a sea from which fish are harvested, a
dairy farm or beef cattle operation, and so on. It could also be freshwater
aquaculture.
Processing/manufacturing includes all the steps along the food chain that prepare a food
item for distribution. In the case of produce, this encompasses everything from
washing produce and preparing it for sale, to pasteurization or low acidity
canning.
Distribution includes everything from storage and warehousing, repacking,
reprocessing, and transport to the next point in the continuum. Sometimes
distribution involves multiple points.
Point of final service includes every place where food is purchased and/or consumed, from
delis, cafeterias, restaurants, grocery stores, and so on, to the home.
Point
of Final Service (Food Establishment System)
Each point along the farm to fork continuum represents its own
unique system. For example, a restaurant is an example of a system.
The outcome of the system (food served to
customers) is influenced by inputs (such as ingredients, organisms,
chemicals) and processes (such as storing, preparing, cooking,
and serving) that make up the system. Internal
system variables such as
food workers, equipment, and the economics also influence the outcome.
EHS-Net uses system theory to identify environmental antecedents
(underlying factors) to illness and disease outbreaks.
The software is quickly becoming a must-have solution for
businesses with complex labor needs, including those that employ a large number
of workers who get paid on an hourly basis.
Food Markets, a privately-owned retail grocer operating many
stores, is one of these businesses. Food market was utilizing multiple,
non-integrated applications to oversee its scheduling and workforce management
processes. This time-consuming system resulted in difficulty controlling
overtime and trouble comparing an employee's scheduled hours to their actual
hours.
To remedy these issues, Food Markets decided to adopt an
integrated and comprehensive workforce management solution. Within months, the
food store chain and a workforce management company called JDA had implemented
the system in all of the company's locations.
Using the software, Food market is now able to monitor the each
store's sales-per-labor hour numbers and make staffing adjustments as needed.
The solution uses POS and customer traffic information to forecast potential
workforce needs in 15-minute intervals. Food market effectively reduced its
labor-scheduling process by as much as 75 percent and lessened overtime by more
than 4,000 hours in the first quarter of 2009, according to a JDA case study.
Furthermore, the chain of stores was able to use the workforce management
software to lower labor costs by 10 to 15 percent due to a "minimum
hours" policy that was instituted. Food market also reported that the
workforce management software helped increase store manager visibility, enhance
worker productivity and accelerate checkout time. In addition, the solution was
found to improve customer service by assuring that an adequate number of
employees are always on the floor and at the registers.
The
vegetables were collected from farmers and brought to collection centers where
payments and quality checks were done. These units were then transferred to the
processing and
Distribution
centers with the help of Reliance’s own logistics. The products having
processed here were then distributed to the various local Reliance fresh
outlets. The product range offered by Reliance Fresh at its outlets is as given
in the exhibit below..
From
the point of view of the store operation excitement among the people who there
was a decline in no of people visiting the precarious situation and forced them
to revisit their long term strategy. People started comparing the fate of
Reliance Fresh with other existing retail stores which were not doing well due
to the some reasons: Operating costs were very high. Rent for shops at prime
areas, salaries of supplyions and given to stir such opposition, all standalone
food & grocery stores.
Food Chain Management is a
web based grower record system for crop and field based activity records, for
managing large numbers of individual growers. The application allows
growers to maintain and update individual crop records, specifically pesticides
and fertilizers, to ensure safe use is monitored and assured.
The software gathers all
field information and enables the grower to upload and manage all fields and
farms and audit chemical applications against pesticide protocols.
With the increased need to
access and input data from any location, Food Chain Management embraces the
latest handheld technologies, delivering instant information at the point
required, so whoever undertakes the task – and wherever they are based –
routines are completed quickly and efficiently and transferred rapidly,
avoiding unnecessary duplication of effort and speeding up operational
processes.
System has
comprehensive, easy-to-use, farm recording solutions that manage all aspects of
crop production, in a harsh outdoor environment. The system, a
web-based Grower record system for crop and field based activity records for
managing large numbers of individual growers. The system is a PC and
mobile based recording system for the management of all aspects of crop and
field based activities. Assists and manages the burden of legislative
compliance for agronomists and farmers.
Food management
system T&T (Track and Trace) is a complete pack house
management system. It is flexible and modular in design - therefore suitable
for both small pack-houses with simple processes, and larger multi product pack
houses with complex multi product operations. From raw material to final
product, processes can be accurately controlled and monitored to drive out
waste and costs and deliver full traceability.
Integration data provides the
invaluable link in the traceability chain from pack-house back to grower site.
New or existing back office finance or ERP solutions can be integrated to
deliver the ideal pack-house management solution. With its ability to
consolidate and manage large quantities of uniquely referenced data, Green light
Track and Trace ensures essential information is accessible at any point
in the procurement process. This enables it to be instantly modified and
updated, reinforcing the entire information process from quality management
through to the control of logistics. With the increased need
to access and input data from any location, Green light embraces the latest
handheld technologies, delivering instant information at the point required, so
whoever undertakes the task – and wherever they are based – routines are
completed quickly and efficiently and transferred rapidly, avoiding unnecessary
duplication of effort and speeding up operational processes. Intelligent
auditing features constantly check conformity and compliance against any given
specifications, minimizing error and reducing risk. So, at every point,
Greenlight can help you to monitor a consignment’s status and security, confirm
its past and control its future.
As we have
studied the various problems and workflow of the food chain management system, the
process from farm to fork is managed by the central computerized system. The
raw material from the farmer passes to the supplier and to the factory to shape
it to the final product and the product is served with the any famous brand
name which handles the food chain management system.