But justifying an operational system is harder: the people doing the business case are not as comfortable in doing so, and data is harder to find.   So for net contents, here is the quick and easy justification… and the really nice thing is that it happens almost immediately after installing the new system… not months or years later.  Simple visibility to real time Net Contents information results in immediate improvement, and consistent visibility maintains the new level.

The visibility reduces the over-pack, without reducing the average to below label.  This is done by tightening up the curve, not just shifting it down.

From this

to this

to this

The math:

Total raw materials cost last 12 months:                 $

(Average net weight / declared)  – 1                         %

Reduction by 50% of overpack                                 %
Reduction * Total = Savings Year 1                          $

Almost always the savings will exceed the implementation costs by orders of magnitude. An example, with small numbers:

Annual Raw materials cost:                                          $1,000,000
Average overpack  (450 gr / 410 gr) – 1                          9.75%
Reduction by 50%  (9.75 /2)                                            4.875%
Reduction in Raw Material cost 1M *4.875             $48,750 per year.

Most of our clients have much larger numbers, but this just shows how little it takes to justify a pretty significant system!

There are a number of ancillary benefits like: improved accuracy of records, passing regulatory audits with less preparation , reduction in fines, less paperwork for operators, less storage costs for the paper, etc., .. but these are less directly quantifiable and the numbers can be disputed.  A pure reduction in material cost is easy to quantify and track.  Frankly, the hardest part of the justification is that financial people tend to be skeptical when presented with a payback period of less than 18 months… but it is the absolute truth.

SPC simply recognizes that every process has built in variability.  Monitoring variability and making information immediately available to the operator can reduce that variability.  Reduction in variability (or to put it positively: consistent product) improves product quality.  Improved product quality increases yield, and profitability.

In areas where variability from specification can cause failure in the final product, SPC has been embraced for decades – if the hole is too small for the bolt to fit through, the whole product fails.  But in food, the ramifications of excessive process variability are not quite as obvious.  In many ways, however, the financial ramifications can be far greater!

The following articulates some areas where our clients have observed significant savings; these may represent opportunities in your plant.

Net Contents Control is one of the most obvious opportunities, being both a “regulatory compliance” (cost avoidance) and “process improvement” (cost reduction) opportunity.  Given that there is always variability in filling operations (despite claims we have heard of accuracy to .001 oz), there is an opportunity to have the occasional underweight get through or have a lot average lower than declaration – both of which are regulatory breaches.  The standard procedure to fix this is to intentionally overfill; but this results in giveaway.

“So what if we overfill by a few grams?” you ask; “No biggy – pennies”.  A couple of grams per package x packages per shift x number of lines x cost (or selling price) per gram can be an astronomical number – especially when extrapolated to the year.  Tightening up the process by a single gram may pay for a complete plant system in a matter of weeks – with a coincidental increase in compliance!  We have seen this time and again.  And, although the studies were done over a couple of months with benchmarks from the first week, the most dramatic improvement is actually realized in the first few hours; derived from showing the operator her results – the rest is slow, methodical improvement.

Relying exclusively on in-line checkweighers to kick out underweights creates rework or feed – it reduces the symptoms, but doesn’t provide a long term or cost-effective remedy.  And especially in an environment where the tare is highly variable, it is an inaccurate method.

Paper charts are tedious, and subject to human error.  But most importantly, they do not represent useable data – they are simply filed away and never seen again at shift’s end.

Improved consistency ANYWHERE in the process can have a very significant effect on net contents.  Too thin may give the consumer the impression that the package is underweight.  In cereal, particle size is crucial – who wants a large amount of dust in the bottom of our cereal box – anything that can improve flake size, moisture, cook time can really affect fines.  Certainly in cheese, moisture content can affect net weight… so much so that moisture is also regulated.  The same is true, however, of any product that has moisture content.  Water, being essentially free, is an excellent ingredient as long as it does not affect quality.  What would be the financial impact of shipping 1% more H₂O?

Temperature, for example, may be a HACCP/regulatory issue (as in internal temperature of meat), but too hot, or too cool, may also have significant ramifications to processing equipment farther down the line – everything is tuned to expect a certain temperature of product, and variation can literally gum up the works – causing scrap, slowdown, and downtime.

Understanding the impact of various process variables will result in process improvement which may range from shaving a few minutes off setup, to changing processes to increase throughput by simplification – all of which can keep your plant cost-competitive with other plants in the family, or competitors.

It is a truism that the more you know about your process, and the faster you know it, the faster you can adapt and avoid crisis.  Typically process knowledge also reduces setup time – allowing more time for actual product processing.  Often solutions are easy and inexpensive once you know what the critical process parameters are. Otherwise solutions are trial and error.

Food companies are beginning to embrace OEE as a key performance indicator, yet surprisingly most OEE systems available do not contain an integrated SPC system – that is like weighing yourself every day so you know how well the weight loss is going, but paying no attention to caloric intake or exercise.  You may luck out, but if you understand the impact of 100 less calories or 20 minutes more running, your chances of reaching the goal are more likely.

Monitoring of cycle time can give visibility to improvement opportunity.  Typically more consistent product can be processed faster, thereby improving yield.  What is the value of increasing your filler speed by 10 packages/minute, or palletizing 5 minutes faster per hour?

Comparing results from multiple lines, whether process or packaging, will facilitate better scheduling decisions to match machine capability to product specification or demand.  Even identical machines will have different variation characteristics which will make some products run better on specific machines or lines.

Alarming is also a significant savings opportunity.  Often a specific measurement may be a leading indicator of problem potential further down the line.  As an example, a 5 degree drop in temperature in mixing may cause problems in the later forming operations.  Knowing that the temperature has been exceeded early will reduce the downtime or the waste at the forming operation.

And last, but not least, correlating process and quality data allows you to discover intra and inter process dependencies which enable effective planning and streamlining. You may find counter intuitive relationships:  maybe an increased conveyor speed will actually improve product consistency by speeding cooling.

SPC – it’s not just for the automotive guys any-more.

This just came in:

“February 23, 2012

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued an interim final rule amending its regulations on record-keeping by food firms to be consistent with FDA’s access to records. FDA’s authority for access to records was expanded by the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) on January 4, 2011.

The new interim final rule makes the reference to records access in the food-firm record-keeping requirements under FSMA consistent with the current statutory language in the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. FDA’s records access and the record-keeping requirements were first established by the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002.

The interim final rule also allows FDA access to records beyond those relating to specific suspect food articles if the agency reasonably believes that the other products are likely to be affected in a similar manner.

This new interim final rule is FDA’s latest step in implementing the FSMA. The expanded records-access authority is expected to improve FDA’s ability to respond to and contain safety problems with the human and animal food supply.”

We’ve seen 2 good pieces of documentation lately that explore the FSMA.

The first was published by one of our solution partners.

Please use this link to read the MasterControl white paper on the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA)

Scroll down and click on:

 “What Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) means to Food & Beverage Industries”.

The second was published in Food Chemical News Week in Review on page 15.

MasterControl solutions include quality management, document management, and product lifecycle management, audit management, training management, document control, and bill of materials, supplier management, and submissions management.

Along with MasterControl products, QIC can deploy MES solutions to your manufacturing floor to address the issues highlighted in these articles.

Contact us at sales@qic-intl.com

There are basically 3 business models for software:

• Software developer sells direct to end users
• Software developer sells through alternate channels: Distributors, Certified/Authorized Partners, OEMs, VARs, VADs, SIs, and several other names.
• Some combination of these.

This discussion will be applicable to complex software packages.  I am not sure a case can be made to acquire MSOffice® from a reseller, unless it is several copies and includes customized training.

Alternate channels are often used “on the way up” by a vendor.  This gives them a wider sales and installation force.  Partners may have a particular cultural, national, or industry expertise, and really do bring significant value to both the vendor and the end user.  We have often been reminded by some of our largest clients that they had the opportunity to deal directly with the software vendor, but chose to use QIC because of our expertise in solving the client problems.

Sometimes when the vendor thinks they are big enough, they cut off the partners and take everything direct.  Customers are always the losers in this kind of action – often being forced to decide between their solution provider, and the software supplier.

The other, diametrically opposed model is seen very often in technology today – the vendor builds a brand by skimming the cream by selling direct.  Then when there is mostly only skim milk left, and every sale is exponentially smaller and harder, the vendor “discovers”, and embraces partners.

QIC has both kinds of relationships with its partners.

There is an inherent motivation in commerce to “cut out the middleman”.  (At Harvard, they call this “disintermediation”.)

And, in many cases, the middleman (or middleperson) does not add value.  We often book our business travel direct with service providers – I have enough experience that I can usually book a faster and more cost-effective itinerary than any travel agent we have used.  BUT, for vacations, or itineraries that use different vendors, I use travel agents who have the country and resort knowledge.

When you are considering a system that has wide ranging impact, such as a MES, PLM, ERP or Document Control System, you can also benefit substantially from such partner knowledge.  If the software vendor has any integrity, you should not pay any different price for the software whether you buy direct or from a partner – the part of the sale that supports working with the client on the solution, simply goes to a different party.  The work still has to be done if a successful outcome is expected.  Competing against your partners is not a great long term business strategy.

There is an argument that dealing direct gives the client access to the “thousands of implementation specialists” that the vendor has available.  Firstly, although there are thousands of people carrying business cards, you will probably find that a great many of them are contractors, not employees!  Secondly, the real question is “how many of those thousands actually know anything about the product I am buying?” and “how many are available for my project?”  There is a Chinese company in the MES space that advertises every solution known to man. They have bought up all kinds of software vendors.  I am told that calls to their support line often results in not finding anyone who has even heard of the product the client has installed – let alone knowledgeable support – but they do have thousands of people!

Conversely, QIC is not a huge company, but when called upon by a large multinational to deploy net contents control in over 50 plants over an 18 month timeframe, we put the teams in place with a 300 page customer-specific reference document (including customer objectives, vocabulary, hardware, software and training instructions, etc.) and executed the most successful system implementation that client had ever experienced.  By contrast, a parallel supplier with those “thousands of specialists” had trouble identifying people to assign to a very small project in the timeframe required – they were all allocated, or did not have the knowledge required!

QIC was literally reacting to client schedule changes by cell phone while at the airport waiting to go out to a customer facility.  Try doing that with a cast of thousands!

So, in my not-so-humble opinion, getting it “wholesale” in a complex business systems market is not a cost effective approach to achieving success.

Now, I believe in helping the authorities in any way to avert terrorism; I am not a huge privacy advocate.  But, apparently provisions of the Patriot Act, as well as other legislation may make it a little too easy for governments to get access to your data.  Great if these powers catch terrorists, or criminals, but if you are just trying to protect your intellectual property as a good corporate citizen, this could be a problem.

Here are some links for you to use to ensure that your cloud provider has adequate protection for your data.  Makes for some very interesting reading.

http://www.mayerbrown.com/publications/article.asp?id=12057&nid=6

Mayer Brown is an international legal firm.  This document explores the exposure under the Patriot Act, as well as other international laws and agreements.

http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/CDN/News.asp?id=65781

This is an article published in the electronic edition of IT Business News that provides an excellent summary, as well as links to additional articles.

http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/CDN/News.asp?id=64279&bSearch=True

Another article from the same publication that is named “Don’t fear the Patriot Act” but actually concludes that the powers that are available under the Patriot Act, are available under other legislation anyway…  so data is still vulnerable….

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/12/patriot-act-and-privacy-laws-take-a-bite-out-of-us-cloud-business.ars

It is really interesting to read predictive texts during period being predicted.  Although I may disagree with some of the underlying macroeconomic assumptions, (that will be another rant) Friedman is spot on in many areas.  Perhaps I should re-read Toffler’s Future Shock… but I digress.

What I wanted to share with you is a sad but interesting anecdote on page 255 (any significance to the page number…?)  This is yet another consideration if you are putting your data in the cloud – the legal ownership issue.  I will essentially re tweet:

“ sort this one out as well.  On November 13, 2004, Lance Corporal Justin M. Ellsworth, twenty, was killed by a roadside bomb during a foot patrol in Iraq…. His family was demanding that Yahoo! give them the password for their deceased son’s e-mail account …  ‘I want to be able to remember him in his words.  I know he thought he was doing what he needed to do.  I want to have that for the future,’ John Ellsworth, Justin’s father, told the <Associated Press>.  ‘It’s the last thing I have of my son.’  We are moving into a world where more and more communication is in the form of bits traveling through cyberspace and stored on servers located all over the world.  No government controls this cyberrealm.  So the question is:  Who owns your bits when you die?  The AP reported that Yahoo! denied the Ellsworth family their son’s password, citing the fact that Yahoo! policy calls for erasing all accounts that are inactive for ninety days and the fact that all Yahoo! users agree at sign-up that rights to a member’s ID or account contents terminate upon death.  ‘While we sympathize with any grieving family, Yahoo! accounts and any contents therein are nontransferable’ even after death, Karen Mahon, a Yahoo! spokeswoman told the AP….  This is very real.  I stored many chapters of this book in my AOL account, feeling it would be safest in cyberspace.  If something had happened to me during my writing, my family and publisher would have had to sue AOL to try to get this text.  Somebody, please sort this all out.”

As Arsenio Hall was occasionally heard to say “Hmmmm”

Intuitive systems are wonderful. It is great that CNTRL_X (orALT_E_T or SHIFT_DEL) cuts, and CNTRL_V (orALT_E_P or SHIFT_INS) pastes, in almost every application under MS Windows®. (Not quite intuitive, but at least consistent.) But to build linked spreadsheets with logic, macros, cell protection… still requires some formal training.

Most systems installed on the factory floor are way more complex than Excel® (although they have to be simultaneously “easy to use” and “flexible”). The reality is that in order for any complex system to be really easy to use, it is fairly complicated to administer. Otherwise, how do you take very detailed and complex tasks like scheduling, data collection,SPC, or machine monitoring and make them dirt-simple for operators to use accurately? You do so by allowing an administrator to tweak the system to perfectly conform to the unique business practices of its user environment.

If a new finance person is hired, it is likely that one of their first tasks will be formal training on the ERP system. If a new manufacturing person is hired, they get formal training on their primary job, safety andGMP… but they probably get nothing more than a quick walk-through of the computer systems from the last person who had their job – knowledge being diminished like in a game of “Telegraph”. Every time the training gets passed on, the “message” changes slightly.

Seems to me that it is more likely that the finance person has a better chance at figuring out how to add an inventory item than an experienced baker has at figuring out how to properly interpret a batching,SPC, or OEE system.

ERP terminology is pretty common. But when it comes to rolling out MES or MOM, we often need to build a “customer lingo” glossary in order to use the “correct” terminology. Some companies call a light weight a MAV (Maximum Allowable Variance), others a UGA (Under Government Allowance), and still others GUL (Gross Under Limit) or any number of other acronyms. If the terminology alone is new-to-her, the system exacerbates the situation, no matter how “intuitive” it is.

Without ongoing training, what often happens is that existing systems limp along – but degrade from a proactive, responsive, informative tool, to a series of standard keystrokes, often with its own count or rhythm. How many times have you seen an operator enter some data, then press ENTER 3 times, then tab, then ENTER (like a paradiddle)? This is not using the tool to maximum effect – this is being a slave to the computer and fooling oneself that data is accurate and valid. Those 3 ENTERS may be significant questions that could provide a wealth of root cause analysis information.
Bad enough when data collection is rote… but it is even worse when the people who should benefit from analyzing that data are also untrained, and simply print out the one report they were once shown – rather than use the analytical tools available.

We have clients who spent a small fortune a decade ago to implement enterprise systems, but have not trained a single person since. The very fact that the system still works with virtually no trained people left is impressive – but that client is not getting anywhere near the payback they should. Data is being captured, yes, but no one knows how to analyze it – they just generate a standard daily report, and file it.

One user actually printed out a report every day, scanned it into a PDF and put the PDF into a daily folder on the server. She did that so that she could look at the numbers later and type what she needed into an Excel® spreadsheet – even though all of the information was in an enterprise data base and could be sliced, diced, filtered, summarized (and yes, directly exported to Excel®) with a couple of keystrokes (about an hour of training). Not her fault – without any training, how could she know what power was at her fingertips?

Recently a client gave us a disturbing list of what they perceived to be problems with one of our more complex systems. After reviewing the list, we discovered that fully 75% of the “problems” were training issues – they either did not understand how to do x; they did not know they could do x; or they were doing y and wondering why x was not happening. Most of the rest could be accommodated by tweaking administrative parameters to closer approximate their business practice, but they did not know what parameters or how to tweak them properly… And in some cases the system is doing exactly what it is supposed to do – just that isn’t what the user wants (Kinda like your spouse saying “you should know what you have done wrong!”) And, oh yes, a couple were legitimate issues that we are working on. Although the system had been in use for several years, not a single current user was one of the original people we trained, nor had the company had any formal training since installation. Users “learned intuitively”. What they ended up with was a large reduction in paperwork – but with a questionable automated result!

Often the user recognizes, correctly, that the system is no longer delivering the benefits; incorrectly concluding that the solution is replacement. Of course, with the new system comes new training, so this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. In reality, probably 80% of the time, some formal refresher training for the new people will achieve (or maybe even exceed) the desired results – a new system may be prettier but often is no more capable (sometimes even a step down) from a pure functionality standpoint.

In most jurisdictions, training expense has preferential tax implications and/or government subsidies. So, before you junk a current Operations system, talk to the vendor and see if some inexpensive training or consultation will address your concerns, and if so, invest in the training. It may not be as exciting as getting a shiny new system, but it could be far less disruptive, less expensive, and achieve faster and bigger returns.

Food Quality Symposium 2011

We have just returned from the Food Quality Symposium in Phoenix. I think the name should be changed to Food Safety Symposium, since many of the presentations, and much of the chitchat was primarily about food safety.

Gina Nicholson from The KrogerCo.gave a very informative and quite gripping presentation on how to keep food safe. She reminded us that none of the acronyms and buzzwords in the world changes the fact that when unsafe food somehow ends up with consumers, little children like the ones pictured in Gina’s presentation get sick and sometimes even die. Everyone in the food chain must be committed to the task, even those who do not understand the acronyms. Sometimes it’s as simple as telling a food service clerk: “wash your hands”.

Terms like HACCP, SQF, GFSI,BRC, FSSC22000,ISO22000,IFS,GAP; these all address Food Safety.  Vic Muliyil from SGS did a great job keeping it clear for us.

Events like this symposium remind us that the level of commitment in our industry towards food safety is high. As providers of software solutions for food safety: MES – Manufacturing Execution Systems, SPC – Statistical Process Control, HACCP – Hazard analysis & critical control points, 21CFR Part 11 compliance, Product Lot Traceability; we are encouraged by the discussions we had about food safety.

All of the people that we spoke with either have a quality system, incorporating MES to capture data at Critical Control Points, or wanted to talk to us about implementing one. Product Lot Traceability, whether you call it Farm to Fork or Field to Fork – it is on everyone’s mind. We won’t install a MES system that doesn’t include lot traceability.

The Food Chain is getting safer – food producers and packers are demonstrating their commitment by becoming certified to standards such as SQF2000, and by maintaining control of their production lines through the use of shop floor quality systems. It shows commitment to the regulators, to the customers, and to the employees in their companies.

We see it all the time in our customers’ plants; employees working on a measurably higher quality, safer (and by the way, more efficient), production line, walk a little taller and seem a little prouder than those working in an uncontrolled environment do.

They also keep their hands pretty clean.

Instead, rather than contribute to landfills by sending Holiday Cards, we have decided to use our Christmas Card budget to purchase a goat, some pigs and other assorted livestock for third world families through World Vision Canada, www.worldvision.ca on behalf of our friends, suppliers and clients.

Have a happy and safe holiday.

My first concern is with the confidentiality of the data. Although certainly the very nature of the internet poses some security risks, I do think that it is largely over stated, particularly by those who want to sell security solutions. Most of us are pretty safe in common transactions. Obviously large or visible organizations are more at risk, but also have tighter security protocols.
However, you may not realize that some content that you create or post “in the Cloud” does not stay confidential. Here is an example of the terms and conditions of a popular Cloud solution:

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.1

However, if you have your formulations, production stats, costing, regulatory compliance data, and other very confidential internal information off site on someone else’s server, all it takes is one greedy technical person with a memory stick, and that data can be in your competitor’s hands tomorrow. While I realize that most providers take exceptional security provisions, even the most secure systems can be hacked. Perhaps one could make the argument that data on a secure server is more secure than on one of yours, precisely because the supplier has more security experience. But there is no substitute for locking the server room door, and disconnecting the MES server from the outside world.

True that the same greedy individual with a memory stick and access to your server room can do the same damage – but she can do that damage as your trusted employee no matter where your data physically resides.

Secondly, as we all know, once something is on the internet, it is there forever. That picture of you mooning the dean during hell-week may cost you the top job some day. Even if it is removed from the primary server, with the replications, backups etc that are performed on these servers, there is a copy somewhere – maybe it will never surface, maybe it will. But, if it was never there, it cannot surface.

For regulatory data, there is usually a provision that the data must be kept for a period of time (with net contents data it is usually 2 years plus shelf life), after which it can be destroyed. However, if there is additional data in existence, it must be available to regulators in an audit situation. Even if one has nothing to hide, it is usually just good business practice to supply only the information that is required, no more. Who knows what silly oversight may show up in a single datum from 4 years ago that at the very least will cost time and energy to investigate and justify? On your server, you can ensure old data is deleted. Someone else may archive it, or keep old backups, or whatever.

Conversely: data is NOT like money in one way: there is no Deposit Insurance. If you keep your money in a bank, and the bank is robbed, your money may have been stolen, but the bank and insurance company make good by giving you the same amount of money – different bills, but every bit as negotiable. If your data is stolen, corrupted, or erased, and this is done effectively from backups and archives as well, it really is your data that was stolen. No one can give you equivalent data!

But in many ways cloud computing may parallel banking: At one time banks paid reasonable interest for your money (about half the rate they charged for lending it) – now they pay almost nothing and invent new fees every day for each transaction or service. ATMs started as a way for the bank to save money on teller salaries and are now costing consumers up to $3.00 or more so that they can do the teller’s job for the bank! As cloud providers consolidate and become the same kind of oligopoly that the banks are, there will be changes to agreements that will result in charges for anything measureable – per user, per month, per cpu, speed, priority, GB transferred, GB stored, number of transactions, maybe even types of transactions, database access cycles, connect time, cancellation fees or transfer of data to another institution… In the digital age, everything can be measured, and hence charged for.

Unscrupulous, or financially troubled vendors may even hold data for ransom. Or, a bank error in paying your bill may cause the cloud supplier to restrict access to your data until you are paid in full.

I am not saying that data should not be on the cloud. Sharing family photos is a great idea, as are numerous other cloud applications. But storing your mission critical, sensitive, confidential or regulatory data outside of your system is, in my opinion, too big a risk.

1 http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS?hl=en&loc=CA

I even went so far as to say that the emphasis on “cloud computing” was, in some ways, a backup business plan for the service providers of the world. “If a great deal of the country’s personal and commercial data is on Microsoft servers”, I reasoned, “then the government could not afford to let Microsoft (or equivalent) go under. The ramifications would be too far reaching.”

Someone responded with a comment that we used to keep our money in our homes, but it is now better in banks – the same may be true in the future of data. Being the open-minded individual that I think I am, I thought that had some merit and considered it.

Considering that even with extensive regulation (which is pretty much non-existent on the web) the banking system is at least partially responsible for the current (and previous) economic crisis, although this may in fact be our future, I think it reinforces my point. The banks were “too big to fail” and the government bailed them out with TARP… and we all know how successful that has been, at least for Mercedes dealerships.

Data may well be the currency of the future, and much as I am not a big supporter of government regulation/interference, the “cloud” without regulation will be a really scary place. Can you imagine completely unregulated banks, drugs, or transportation? There is just too much greed out there.

People who had their money in a mattress when this last downturn hit may have, in fact, done much better than those who were “fully invested” (I know that is different than “money in the bank”, but work with me here). And the returns on “money in the bank”, after bank charges and fees, may, in fact be negative in some cases!

So I stick by my original statement that, although for many MES applications, browser-based solutions are recommended (and many of QIC’s solutions are browser-based), the data should be stored on internal servers – perhaps accessible over the WWW, but keep the data in-house. This is far more secure, and, in the long term less expensive – storage is cheap, and housekeeping is just a matter of discipline and procedure.

Future blog entries will explore some of the risks inherent in storing your private data in a semi-public place.

I’ve been in application solutions for manufacturing since the 1970s.  I’ve sold mainframes; I’ve defined packages for sale on Minicomputers; I’ve been in marketing and support; and I’ve spent years working alongside customers installing and supporting MES systems.

It really irks me when I see an otherwise very intelligent customer get bamboozled by marketing hype, and spend millions of dollars on the wrong solution!  So I am breaking with the magicians’ union (so to speak) and will share with you over the next several blog posts some of the secrets that, once you know, can help you make better decisions on software solutions.

I will share with you strategies and anecdotes that may help you in your decision process.

You should know that, as a software supplier I worked with in the 1980s used to say, “Software salesmen lie, and the customer knows it… so don’t lie…”  This is as true today as it ever has been.

There are, of course, degrees of lying.  It is quite common, for example, for a software salesman to say that her product has a particular feature, in the hopes that the client will never actually get around to installing it.  Unfortunately, that feature is sometimes the single reason why the customer selects one solution over another.  I have seen it time and again.

So protect yourself.   If someone says that they can do something, make them show you with live software.  However, recognize that so many tools exist to prototype, that it will be far more informative to ask enough questions of the vendor, to know if the vendor actually knows what she is talking about.

Here’s a simple example in net contents control:

Almost every SPCpackage salesperson will tell you that their product will do net contents control.  After all, it is really just a run chart.  The reality is that, unless they have done it before (and frankly, even if they have done it before) they probably do not do it correctly.  There are a number of companies who think they have adequate weight control, but are not really in compliance!

Ask questions that will let you know whether they understand what you are talking about:  What is a MAV; what does UGA mean; what is the difference between USDA and FDA rules; what is NIST 133; how does the package handle t₁ and t₂; what are the differences between Canadian and US regulations; what are the ramifications of declarations in both metric and imperial; what about piece counts;  how do they handle multiple tares and complex products like pizza where there are other regulations that come into play; what are the special requirements with volume declarations; why not just use an inline check weigher; what constitutes a compliance lot; how do multiple fillers factor in; what are the retention rules and what are the ramifications of keeping more than necessary;

Look for plain language answers, not formulae.  Anyone can spew back the formulae in NIST 133 or the Canadian Weights and Measures Act (but I would have to look them up) but only an experienced net contents control person can tell you that the MAV is usually around x% of label, or x tests per hour on your line should be sufficient to satisfy the regulation.

And since anyone can find out all of this from the QIC website and our whitepapers, expect answers while the salesperson or support rep is in your office… don’t give them advance notice.

Also recognize that the issue is not necessarily the software capability; it is about the knowledge and capability of the people setting the software up for you.  QIC has installed over 1000 production lines of weight control using a couple ofSPCpackages.  We have written white papers that the vendor has published.  But, although that vendor says they know net contents control, I seriously doubt they could answer all of these questions.  It is how we set up the software that makes it capable of weight control – it is not inherent in the software itself.

Why worry about controlling the amount of product you are giving to customers?

Why not just fill those jelly jars or wine bottles to the brim? On the other hand, maybe you could under-fill each, just a bit to stretch things.

Two great reasons why you may need to re-think net contents:

1) Client satisfaction – give the client what you say you will and you will have a happy customer.
2) You need to comply with regulations. This keeps you out of trouble, and avoids fines.

However, cost (fine) avoidance is not the only reason for implementing a net contents control solution.

With most of our clients, before we implemented our solution, compliance to FDA, USDA, CFIA, Measurement Canada and other international net contents control regulations was achieved by over-packing product – filling those jelly jars or wine bottles right to the brim with substantially more product than the amount shown on the label.

Regulations were met, but at a substantial cost – we find typically 15% of total raw material and production costs are given away – a huge amount!

Within days, sometimes hours, of implementing our solutions, giveaway dropped dramatically. We will talk about this in a future blog post – “Show Me the Savings” which will recount the real life achievements at one of our large clients.

At first glance, net contents control seems to be little more thanSPC(Statistical Process Control). While it is not only reasonable, but also advisable, to useSPCtechniques to control net contents, not everySPCsoftware package will fulfill the regulatory requirements of theUS. Moreover, Canadian regulations, being even more complex, place even more demands on the software.

Quality Integrators Corporation is an expert in net contents control. Not only have we implemented net contents control on over 1000 production lines, we have also written much of the generic net contents documentation used in our clients.

By achieving net contents control, our clients often pay for the system (including infrastructure, training, software, services, and even internal charges) in less than a year out of savings.

The solution is based on industry leading SPCsoftware products, which meet the criteria of having enough functionality to achieve complete regulatory compliance. They have many specific net contents control features to further enhance its applicability to this need. You can read about QIC‘s stringent criteria at www.qic-intl.com

Then you get the phone call. A company that supplies you flour was just found to be in violation of cleanliness regulations, and their product is being recalled. Fortunately, you buy flour from two different sources so you should still be able to keep your loyal customer base supplied with cookies.

All you have to do is to trace which cookies the flour from the company in question went into.

No problem; you have all of the paperwork for the shipments, and all your batch tickets filed in your office. The owner’s son is home from university for the weekend, and if you draft him (and his girlfriend), and get the office staff and sales reps from the tri-state area to come in on Saturday, you should be able to produce the lot list for recall by Monday morning.

Good thing the recall was not initiated by the FDA under the Bioterrorism Act, or you would have had to be ready by 2 PM Saturday!

As long as none of the paperwork is lost, you’ll be fine.  Too bad about the vacation though.

There is a better way. A way that involves a few keystrokes, and about 10 minutes.

For the small food company that doesn’t yet run any other manufacturing quality software (Net Contents Control, Statistical Process Control, Equipment Downtime, Overall Equipment Effectiveness), we present QIC Trace™ Lite.

Using QIC Trace™ provides complete traceability on product from where the raw ingredients enter your building, all the way through to the lots that you ship out to your distribution channel.

Product traceability in the food industry is no picnic. Grains of salt do not have serial numbers, and many similar ingredients end up in a wide variety of products. QIC Trace™ was designed and written for the food industry.

Look at QIC Trace™Lite.   The company owner will appreciate you more.