With unemployment hovering near zero, what we’re finding is that hiring and staffing is one of the biggest challenges facing our customers today.
The goal of lot tracing software at a food manufacturer is increased food safety, instant tracing, and increased efficiency on the shop floor. But barcoding and scanning has another added benefit as well: increased staff retention and reduced training time.
Employee Retention
Ease of use is critical to food-specific solutions. You want a solution that is designed to help rather than burden the shop floor, and possibly one that integrates with an existing system that your workers already know how to use.
Our customers’ employees prefer scanning to hand-writing or typing into Excel. It’s more efficient, they’re more productive, and that job satisfaction matters to them.
Tonya Metz at Schiltz Foods, the largest producer of geese in the U.S., had this to say after implementing our modern materials control solution:
“The system was so easy to implement on the shop floor, the staff was trained in less than one afternoon and we received excellent support from the project team at Parity.”
Faster, Cheaper Training
Training employees on a ParityFactory enabled plant is immensely faster and easier than training with clipboards and Excel spreadsheets. The time for a new employee to get up and running is nearly twice as fast, on average, as a food manufacturer running on paper.
Part of the reason for that? Error checking. ParityFactory’s lot tracing software won’t let them do something against the rules. Better than that, it gives them feedback and tells them what the error is and why.
The other reason is that there are less custom steps in using barcoding and scanners to run your warehouse and production. The software automatically takes care of several steps that would otherwise be manual, meaning there are less tasks to train.
A Bigger Employee Pool
Food and Beverage manufacturers have complex processes. Our clients’ businesses aren’t simple. And that requires incredibly detail oriented staff to produce an error free product.
ParityFactory mitigates that need, at least partially, by automatically checking for and rejecting errors. In essence, our lot tracing and warehouse management software makes their jobs easier. And that means there’s a bigger pool of potential employees who can do that work successfully.
Growth
Nearly half of all businesses report their number one challenge is revenue growth, but only 9% plan to implement automated inventory control systems. If you are still manually tracking inventory, then you are missing opportunities for lowering your costs, increasing profits, and realizing heightened productivity.
Employees spend too much time sifting through paperwork and printing spreadsheets that don’t provide real-time information. Office staff struggle to make well-informed decisions because real-time data is unavailable.
Implementing an automated system will eliminate wasted hours and allow employees to focus on doing their jobs better and meeting goals rather than hunting down information.
If you’re one of the 46% of businesses still tracking inventory manually, you’re obviously not alone. Food safety is our passion, and we know our clients’ industries well. Moving from paper and Excel to automated materials control takes 60 to 90 days and the value of that effort endures.
To find out more about how ParityFactory can help you streamline your process, retain employees and save money, give us a call or send an email. We’d be happy to answer any questions or set up a demo.
