Today, we learned that 15 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine were ruined when ingredients for Astra Zeneca were mistakenly mixed into the J&J doses.
This is a dramatic example of something that happens every day in food and beverage. Typically, it’s something a bit less catastrophic than the destruction of a critical vaccine. In food, it might look something like putting inorganic blue berries in the organic muffins, or mixing the wrong grade of walnuts into a production process, but nonetheless the impact and expense is material. Not only can this type of production blunder be a financial hit due to the loss of large amounts of product, the damage to an organization’s reputation can cause reduced sales and financial challenges far into the future. Once that consumer trust is lost, it’s an uphill battle to get it back.
One of the great features of ParityFactory that we don’t often talk about, is that the system has checks in place that prevent workers from scanning the wrong ingredients into a production process. Most often used to enforce FIFO or LIFO, the production runs in ParityFactory also manage the Bill of Materials. If a user attempts to scan out ingredients for a production run that aren’t on the BOM, the system will push out an error warning them specifically that the ingredient is not a part of the recipe.
The same feature that prevents users from using the wrong ingredients also eliminates miss-ships. Because the software is often integrated with the user’s ERP platform, it’s able to import open sales orders and trucks are loaded against that information. If workers attempt to scan more or different products to a shipment that are3 not reflected on the Sales Order, ParityFactory will display an error message and prevent loading.
It’s a small feature, but it has a big impact on our customers operations. And in this case, at least, would’ve prevented a mistake that wiped out millions and millions of doses. If you’re interested in learning more about how ParityFactory WMS helps processors mitigate risks both large and small, reach out today for a free demo with our team of food industry professionals.
