Sunjuice in wastage drive

Smoothies, juice and soups maker The Serious Food Company is aiming to boost service levels, reduce wastage and improve communications between production and sales at its Sunjuice drinks division with the introduction of a new forecasting system from Ross Systems.

Planning manager Mark Way said: “Basically, we didn’t have a proper forecasting system at all before, we’d just base planning on the previous week’s orders and use spreadsheets.

“It was very much back of the envelope approach, which meant that any significant movements in demand could lead to waste or shortages quite quickly. We are also handling products that are very seasonal and demand can be quite volatile.”

The iRenaissance supply chain management solution from Ross Systems will go live at Sunjuice’s two production facilities in Llantrisant, south Wales, at the end of this month following an eight week implementation, with an advanced planning systems (APS) module to follow in early January 2006, said Way.

The new system factors in historical sales data, weekly profiles, customer specific data and promotional activity plus various other factors to produce a more robust forecast, he said. “There is also complete visibility to the sales team so that they can see what we’re working with and we don’t get the situation whereby they are promising things to customers that production cannot deliver.”

Although there was a lot of useful data on some of the retailers’ extranet information systems for suppliers, it was sometimes inaccurate and out of date, he said. “And with a shelf life of just 15-16 days for some products, and customers typically wanting 75% of that, getting forecasting right is absolutely critical.”

The Serious Food Company was expanding rapidly, with a new chilled desserts division about to launch, he added. “When you get to this size, planning and production has to be underpinned by proper forecasting systems.”