Herman Desserts Renews its business software together with SPHINX-IT to improve efficiency and trace products throughout all company processes

Herman Desserts, located in Ostend, manufactures and distributes natural fruit and chocolate mousses since 1986. The company sells its products to distributors such as Carrefour Belgium, Delhaize and Spar under private label or brand name. About 20% of the turnover is realised in foreign countries. "We have always tried to be on top of new trends. We have introduced many new and tasty desserts over the years" says Herman Roobroeck.

When asked about the key success factors of Herman Desserts, Herman Roobroeck (CEO) gives the following answer: "We manufacture with natural and pure products such as 100% pure Belgian chocolate. During the production process no additives or flavouring products are added and that makes our desserts so unique".

SOLUTION

The company used to work with an accounting system in a DOS environment. "Our existing system did not support the tracking and tracing of products: we were forced to use handwritten lists. This was a very time-consuming and complicated process. So in all, the legacy system didn't meet the requirements set forward by the quality and safety standards we wish to comply with." says Herman Roobroeck.

To address these issues, the company needed a new instrument to gain complete control of all the goods through all stages of the production and logistic processes at any given time.

After researching the market, Herman Roobroeck got convinced of the functionalities of SPHINXtrace (the Tracking & Tracing add-on developed by SPHINX-IT based on Microsoft Dynamics NAV). This business management solution allowed him to go even beyond the minimum needs of strict food industry regulations.

"We were looking for a solution allowed us to track the history of each single supply, component and finished good. Microsoft Dynamics NAV enhanced with SPHINXtrace meets these requirements." explains Herman Roobroeck.

BENEFITS

Since January 2006, Herman Desserts uses this integrated system for Customer Relationship Management, Finance and Supply Chain including Manufacturing and Traceability. All Quality and Traceability information is now registered in so called "lot-files", which allows Herman Desserts to track all lot numbers upstream (incoming raw materials) and downstream (goods sold). The lot numbers of all ingredients and raw materials in a single manufactured batch are stored, and the status of the products is known in the warehouse at all times; where they come from, and their destination. The system also caters for quarantining of critical raw materials (e.g. eggs) that have to undergo lab testing before they can be safely released for production. Thanks to the new software solution, employees now spend much less unproductive time on manual registration processes and achieve greater business insight.