Full compliance, no more print room Emmett UK Ltd.

About Emmett

Emmett UK is a fresh produce business supplying major retailers with four products, Spinach, Kale, Leeks and Cavolo Nero. The business covers all areas of the supply chain from growing and packing to dispatching the finished products. More than 98% of the products sold are grown on own farms in Lincolnshire, Deeside, Spain and Italy to ensure an all year round supply.

Challenge

Emmett was looking to replace their existing production control, printing and coding solution with an integrated solution that had to meet a number of requirements:

• Eliminate process re-work and withdrawals by eliminating packing errors
• Improve processing operational efficiency through improved use of technology
• A printing/coding system that caters for all production lines
• System stability with no unplanned downtime
• Improve access to process data and improved reporting (e.g. Production yield, OEE)
• Ability to scale systems with business growth and development
• A solution that fully meets our clients’ business requirements
• A supported and developing software solution
• Solution functionality that can be extended to support the business in the future (scalable)

Solution

Working closely with the team at Emmett, Harford implemented a solution that meets all of the requirements above, and more. Tracking all materials from Goods In to Despatch within the system ensures that only correct origin information for any product is printed onto the right retail packaging, thus eliminating any coding and labelling issues and guaranteeing full compliance with any retailer’s requirements. Tray label printers print the required amount of labels per run – automatically configured with correct information – directly on the line, making the print room redundant.
Harford terminals in all relevant areas of production allow operators to perform quality checks and record results, so that the technical team is always informed about product quality. Large screens keep all personnel informed about performance, yield and plan conformance.

Benefits

• Complete removal of the print room, resulting in less label waste
• Better control of increasing complexity in a rapidly growing business
• Minimisation of paper used on the shop floor

Comment

“Having now installed the Harford system across all our packing lines, I am very happy with our improvement to date. Through it’s well structured hardware and software routines, it has helped us to minimise production risk, improve quality consistency and improve efficiency, whilst eliminating most factory floor paperwork and providing instant traceability.”

Richard Fox, Operations Director