Consumer Packaged Goods, including food and drink

There aren't many sectors that face the sort of customer pressure food and beverage firms deal with on a daily basis. Supermarkets are huge, powerful and demanding. They often require their suppliers to come up with new product ideas and run test production without any guarantee that the line will be approved. And delivery lead times shorter than the time it actually takes to make the product are commonplace.

So food manufacturers need to have robust forecasting systems. They need to have planning and execution systems that can adapt rapidly to changing circumstances – right down to the level of minutes, if necessary. And they need datalogging to provide real-time quality functionality that can track materials right through the production process and into finished goods.

In addition, many other specific features are now essential in the food industry supply chain - applying to manufacturers, converters and distributors. Lot or batch control with full end-to-end, field to fork traceability is not only essential, the speed and ease of tracing suspect materials can make a significant difference to the fortunes of a company in times of crisis. Quality data, in the form of specifications, variable attributes, test requirements and test results - integrated with full traceability of course - must be an integral part of the supply chain and manufacturing systems.

SAP for Consumer Goods

The Challenge

You face demands from retailers for lower prices and higher service levels and you experience increased pressure from low-priced, private-label products. As a result, you are forced to look for areas to reduce costs and to streamline and automate your business processes for quicker order fulfillment. To attract and retain key retailers, you also need excellent inventory management and direct-to-store delivery capabilities.

The Solution

SAP delivers support for an integrated order-to-cash process that eliminates the manual processes and traditional high IT costs associated with connecting disparate point solutions. Our solutions provide you with insight into everything related to your organization’s accounting and controlling functions. The resulting visibility and streamlined functionality help boost productivity and give you back the control of business processes lost by using numerous nonintegrated systems.

SAP solutions enable food and beverage companies to optimize both inventory levels and storage space based upon inventory planning and turnover. You can perform quality checks in combination with warehouse management and transportation management, helping reduce costs associated with the order-todelivery cycle. For retailers that require direct store delivery, SAP software features a powerful route-management function that can load, dispatch, and track any number of deliveries efficiently. Route-planning tools optimize the entire approach to deliveries, help eliminate redundant trips, and allow food and beverage companies to match the appropriate vehicles and drivers to their customers for each delivery.