Lo Miranda, CHL – September 2016

Meat Management Successfully Implemented at Third Agrosuper Plant in Lo Miranda

 

Chilean food company Agrosuper celebrated a further success as Meat Management by Softproviding was introduced in their third plant according to plan. After the implementation of Meat Management in the San Vicente poultry plant in October 2015, work continued apace with the rollout in Lo Miranda and a successful go-live in July 2016.

 

Some 6,000 pigs and 200,000 chickens for fattening per day, along with the parent animals from the company’s own farms, are slaughtered and disassembled in a two-shift process across various locations at the Lo Miranda site. A large proportion of the meat produced there is processed further and packed in consumer units on the basement floor of the pig disassembly area, primarily for the national market. In a further, central freezer building, which is connected underground to the pig disassembly and processing areas, some of the packaged finished products are frozen.

 

A further aim of the project to roll out Meat Management by Softproviding in Lo Miranda, led by Ignacio Vial (Agrosuper) and René Stampfli (Softproviding AG), was to bring over the existing processes and to expand them to include the operational and process-specific requirements of the Lo Miranda site. After preparations were made for the project in late 2015, the three-month gap analysis phase began in January 2016. The implementation work that followed and the integration and regression tests were completed in late June 2016. Because of the complex flow of goods distributed across three buildings, Meat Management was implemented in four stages on the weekends in July 2016:

• Stage one: livestock reception, slaughtering, disassembly
• Stage two: packaging, labelling, palletizing of unprocessed pig products
• Stage three: packaging, labelling, palletizing of unprocessed poultry products
• Stage four: production, packaging, labelling, palletizing of processed and frozen products (pig and poultry)

The DPS-RAF technology used at the sites in Rosario (pig) and San Vicente (poultry), which are already up and running, was implemented across the entire shop-floor and expanded to include the operational, process-specific and stock-type-specific requirements. For instance, in the area of livestock reception, slaughtering and disassembly, the additional categories for the parent animals were expanded using settings in Softproviding Meat and integrated into the existing DPS RAF applications.

 

The processes in the area of packaging, labelling and palletizing were brought over to Lo Miranda without any major adjustments, as they are essentially the same for all stock types and products.

 

 

The automatic labelling lines in the new building for poultry were also connected without any problems. On these automatic lines, a label is scanned to identify the material and the weight of the package is stored. The package is then transported away and the label is automatically dispensed. Employees therefore only need intervene if, for example, labels cannot be read.

 

 

The tried-and-tested standard functions of Softproviding Core were also used for production of the processed products on the basement floor of the pig disassembly area. This makes it possible, for example, to record weighing operations at the same time as upstream and downstream processes and thus reduce the outlay involved in process data acquisition.

 

The challenges posed by this rollout project were overcome successfully, in part because the key users from the Rosario and San Vicente factories were able to contribute to the project. In addition to this, the new project team members at Lo Miranda familiarized themselves with the existing processes in Rosario and San Vicente at an early stage. This enabled Agrosuper to continue building on its expertise and use it internally. Agrosuper also spent two weeks visiting Softproviding AG for the purpose of process validation and building up knowledge for the implementation phase – a move which definitely paid off.

 

Thanks to the excellent cooperation of the project team and specialists at Agrosuper and Softproviding and, above all, the great efforts of everyone involved in the project, all the milestones were achieved on schedule and the project goal was met with the successful go-live in July 2016.

 

 

Agrosuper is now well versed in the benefits of Meat Management by Softproviding and is evaluating whether to implement this fully integrated solution in its salmon and turkey operations too, in order to further harmonize and expand its processes. The functions of Meat Management by Softproviding, the flexible solution that is compatible with all stock types, can also be used for a wide varity of other areas and stock types.