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Chapter 6 • Software and Vendor Selection 179

LINE SCHEDULING
Fruit and vegetable beverage manufacturers deal with allergens. Allergen tracking is
important, as well as color/product scheduling issues. Production scheduling must optimize
a production schedule based on attributes of the formula; apple products should be run
before blueberry products and nonallergens before allergens. The ERP functionality must
capture the cost-saving benefit of minimizing changeover time.

KOSHER/HALAL CERTIFICATION
Some juice manufacturers make Kosher and Halal beverage products. Garber suggested,
“Any technology solution must indicate whether a formula is Kosher or Halal. O2 is one of
the few batch or recipe process manufacturing ERP systems that allow a user to indicate
formulas that are Kosher or Halal. Whether Muslim in the case of Halal certification or a
Rabbi in the case of Kosher certification, both will typically review formulations as well as
historical production to verify that Kosher or Halal products have been used. The ability to
print and view all formulas and ingredients that have a designation is vital and must be true
of historical production batches.”
Other ERP functionality for these two designations include the requirement of “source
of ingredients” because of the direct relationship to lot tracking of raw materials from
procurement through production to finished goods. The requirement of “status of production
equipment” relates to machines that only run Kosher or Halal items (given the cleaning
specification of both food designations). Garber also noted, “Production planning (finite
capacity) rules can be set to state that a section of formulas are only run on certain machines.
If a planner tries to run on another line, the schedule board will prohibit it from moving.
Production history can be updated for the machine indicating that a batch was actually run
and received the required verification that batches were run on proper equipment. Indicators
that the needed blessing has been made to a particular batch, item, or lot can be indicated.”

PRIVATE LABEL
Many times a manufacturer will produce private label products—the juice is all the same,
however it is packaged in multiple unique packages for different clients. An ERP system must
allow for the manufacture of coproducts and define different packaging based on each SKU.

EXPIRY DATES AND SELL-BY DATES
Fruit and vegetable beverage manufacturers use ingredients that have very short expira-
tion dates. Some industries (like citrus) squeeze all the fruit right away, package some,
and make the rest concentrate and freeze; others store the fruit in coolers until they are
ready to use them. The latter process is constantly in a race against time to use the fruit
before it spoils. ERP systems must track lot expiry dates; when creating picks for produc-
tion batches, it is best if the technology selected can suggest the oldest lot (or first to
expire) for the batch.

LANDED COSTING
The cost of shipping of materials can be a significant portion of the material cost. Many
fruit and vegetable manufacturers need to have the total cost of receiving an item included
in the cost of material; this requires landed costing functionality.