Basel, CH – December 2020
Procurement and Billing of Herbs Using Food Management by msg and SAP S/4HANA
In Q2 and Q3 2019, the industry solution Food Management by msg was introduced at Ricola AG in order to handle classified procurement and further processing for the purchasing of herbs as well as the 1st stage of their processing.
The Ricola brand was created from confectionery business Richterich & Compagnie Laufen in 1930 based on the twin pillars of innovation and quality awareness. The family business now exports its herb specialties to more than 50 countries in Europe, Asia and the US. All Ricola herbal creations are being produced in Switzerland.
Once again, the flexibility of Softproviding AG’s software solution proved itself: All necessary tasks could be accomplished without significant additional effort using proven food management functionalities such as Classified Procurement, Further Processing, Process Data, DPS and DPS-RAF.
Since Ricola processes 1400 tons of high-quality fresh herbs from farmers in Swiss mountain regions every year, this area is of utmost importance to ensure a smooth process from goods receipt to the herbs processing as well as full traceability.
Herbs purchasing is handled using Food Management by msg and supported by its shop floor applications. The reception process starts with DPS-RAF, a food management application for goods receipt on which each pallet is recorded and every receipt is posted. A goods receipt label is generated, and the quantity is posted to the SAP inventory. Due to the strict legal requirements, we naturally work with batch classes and batch inventory management, which, among other things, guarantees seamless traceability.
In processing, Ricola uses Android tablets with a DPS-RAF application to classify the herbs (i.e., to determine their quality). The pallet labels are scanned and the quality is recorded for the order item. Classification is performed in the days and weeks after reception. The Classified Procurement solution in Food Management by msg is then used for the settlement and to pay for the herbs.
After classification, the pallets are weighed and posted to the further processing orders using Food Management shop floor applications.
In production, further Food Management shop floor applications are used for blending and packaging the herbs.
In addition to the benefits already highlighted in the introduction, Food Management by msg is a standardized and future-proof software with regular updates (following the SAP innovation cycles). Due to the simplicity of the integrated plant data collection functionality, Food Management by msg enjoys a high degree of acceptance among users, which has also benefited Ricola. Platform independence (iOS, Android, Windows, HTML) and the ability to optimize the user interface for tablets, scanners and other end devices are other important assets of the solution introduced at Ricola.
The time required to create and check invoices and to pay the supplier has been reduced considerably. It is now also much easier, for example, to cancel an invoice, change the incorrectly entered data and create a new invoice.
If we have piqued your interest with this article, please do not hesitate to contact Mr. Stephan Kronbichler (Business Development) for more information: e-mail, phone +41 (0)61 508 21 42.