Lower Risk, Boost Safety

One example is Sysco Corp., Houston, Texas, the market leader in North American foodservice distribution and a company recognized for the quality of its historically audit-based quality assurance system. The performance of the AMS vendor and supply chain management system has been a significant impetus for Sysco to add SPC and process management methods to its own program for meat vendors.

Sysco requires its vendors to demonstrate that they have in place and deliver SPC and related quality deliverables with their product. In addition, Sysco has expanded its in-house SPC program to support supply chain management.

Enterprise-wide Process Quality Management

The poultry processor Pilgrim’s Pride, Pittsburg, Texas, has developed its system based on the Systems Applications and Products in Data Processing (SAP) enterprise software, coupled with NWA Quality Analyst to provide SPC and manufacturing analytics reporting. Part of the challenge has involved integrating several acquisitions into the system. Developing a standard enterprise system supported by corporate IT has made the process more feasible.

Pilgrim’s Pride uses the system to establish the conditions for success by developing capability-based specifications that enable it to deliver supplier performance. R&D develops achievable specifications based on production data during pilot runs. Active, collaborative work between vendor and customer make the system workable.

The manufacturing and supply chain quality decision support system involves integrated data collection, management, analysis, and reporting to enable capable supplier production performance. Data is transformed into process information through analysis, which forms the basis for decision making and action.

The system uses standard commercial enterprise software. SAP is used to collect and manage the production data, which is fed to NWA Quality Analyst for analysis, reporting, and visualization. Pilgrim’s Pride has developed an in-house dashboard and Web site design that delivers the appropriate role-specific reports and visualization to the staff.

The system handles approximately 15,000 data points per day. The entire system, ranging from initial data collection to final analytics reporting, operates in a Citrix environment. The SAP shop floor server is configured to pull data by characteristic and feed it to the analytics software through an Open DataBase Connectivity (ODBC) link. The quality software is configured to automate specific reporting. The system is generating a large number of histograms, mostly focused on weights and portion control. A typical parameter that is tracked is batter/breading pick-up.

Much like the in-house dashboards that provide status and production management information to the staff, the external Web site is used for customer lot acceptance and to establish the perception of Pilgrim’s competence as a vendor. For example, when a new product was recently delivered to a restaurant chain, the Pilgrim’s staff could irrefutably demonstrate that it had scored a 100.

The enterprise system enables Pilgrim’s Pride to effectively use its production data, analyzed with SPC and process capability, as a tool to demonstrate and to manage compliance. This in-house discipline and external demonstration of capability is a significant contributor to Pilgrim’s Pride’s status as a major poultry supplier to fast food restaurants, casual dining restaurants, and frozen entrée producers.

CONCLUSION

As the food-processing industry has become dependent on extended supply chains with multiple vendors, risk and quality management has become critical. To reduce risk and produce dependable results, processors must formalize vendor certification, process monitoring, and enforce continuous process improvement in their supply chains.

The systems include accountable data collection, analysis, and supply chain-wide reporting. This reporting should be role specific to maximize usefulness and support timely and effective decision making.

These examples illustrate how well-designed and implemented supply chain safety and quality management systems can reduce risk and improve performance and profitability.

Cawley is vice president of market development at Northwest Analytical, Inc., Portland, Ore. Contact him at 503-224-7727 or [email protected].