China Moves on Food Safety

I just returned from a trip to Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou to support the launch of Infor Process Essentials, a suite of ERP, supply chain, event management, and enterprise asset management solutions, for the Chinese market. China is one of our fastest growing markets and this was an important launch for Infor. China’s domestic process manufacturing industry is massive, and while we already have a number of customers there, the new capabilities and localization features address some needs for manufacturers in the Middle Kingdom.

China’s domestic market reflects some of the same trends that more industrialized countries faced a few decades ago, but at a greatly accelerated pace. There is a huge emerging middle class in China that has discretionary spending power, and they are demanding fresher products and more choices. This growth has led to some problems in food safety, which have shaken confidence for consumers both at home and abroad.

This month China rolled out a new food safety law, which has safety and recall standards and requires producers to list all additives. This is meant to protect consumers and China’s brand as a food producer. I’m no geo-political expert, so I don’t know how effective the government will ultimately prove at enforcement, but it’s undeniably a step in the right direction. Here’s what I do know: Food safety is challenging, and getting more complex every day. With increasing time pressures, regulatory complexity, and consumer requirements, it’s become more important than ever for companies to integrate quality and compliance into all aspects of their business to minimize the total cost of quality and compliance.

In China, this means implementing systems and quality processes that ensure product quality extends all the way to the retail shelf. Things like:

• Material quality—Complete definition and enforcement of non-allowable attributes and required attributes. Processes for supplier audits and supplier enablement.
• Integrated quality and HACCP capabilities—Full lot/sublot track and trace, shelf-life, and “best by” capabilities, and active HACCP monitoring and enterprise critical control point issue mitigation.
• Cold supply chain infrastructure and processes—More investments in cold storage and trucking.
• Forecasting—Producing the right products and reducing unsalables.
• Planning and scheduling—Planning to make more profitable proximity decisions and scheduling to react to disruptive events.

These are just a few of the processes that Chinese companies are coping with. While many of these companies are lagging behind in food safety, they are by no means alone in playing catch-up. The recent salmonella-tainted peanuts issue in the US showed us the importance of vigilance and that every company must take responsibility. The good news is that companies that make these investments in food safety, protect not only their brand and consumer health, but also realize increased profitability.

Posted by Rory Granros, Product Marketing Manager, Process Industries

Avoiding Total Recall: Software for Food Safety

It has been only months since the peanut contamination caused public outrage, hundreds of illnesses, and the downfall of a corporation. Unfortunately, I expect the number of high-profile recalls to increase in the future. There are a number of factors at play here, such as mega-farms and large retail outlets, which can amplify small problems to national proportions. Consumer demand for fresher foods and more outsourcing increases complexities and makes the need for greater vigilance more pressing than ever.

To manage this growing complexity, manufacturing companies need to have solutions in place that mitigate the risk of a recall and, if one is required, provide the ability to rapidly execute that recall to prevent public harm and brand damage.

Different types of enterprise software are involved in ensuring food safety in manufacturing. Below is a basic overview of some of the most important ones; the solutions aren’t necessarily presented in order of importance because of the unique drivers facing each business.

For a more in-depth view, P.J. Jakovljevic has an excellent post on the TEC blog that outlines Infor’s Product Compliance Strategy.

1) Enterprise asset management (EAM)
Companies that are serious about avoiding contamination in their products need to get serious about EAM. Proper maintenance of assets and facilities is critical. For example, one of the allegations in the peanut recall was that the bacterium listeria entered the food chain through a leaky roof over a storage container. Problems aren’t always this obvious. Preventative maintenance for complex equipment or complete routings should include sanitation and visual inspection of all adjacent areas. As part of the preventative maintenance process, Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) documentation can be automated and support audits.

A Green Role Model: Mohawk Fine Papers

Congratulations to Mohawk Fine Papers, the number one ranked company on Computerworld’s list of the “Top Green-IT Organizations.”

What sets Mohawk apart is that its IT strategy for sustainability is “pervasive,” to quote Paul Stamas, vice president of IT for Mohawk. Their approach goes well beyond green IT measures like using energy efficient servers, to encompass using IT as an enabler to weave sustainable practices throughout the fiber of their operations.

The company has implemented green processes throughout its manufacturing, distribution, and facilities operations. Mohawk uses Infor ERP, supply chain, and enterprise asset management (EAM) solutions to help with this.

On Earth Day, I can’t think of a better sustainability role model than Mohawk Fine Papers.  As a company that is so dependent of natural resources, it’s taken a leadership role to make sure those resources will continue to be available for the next generation.

Read more about Mohawk’s commitment to sustainability, and view a video testimonial on how they are using Infor’s EAM software to reduce their energy consumption.

Posted by Rod Ellsworth, Vice President, Global Asset Sustainability

U.S. Government Focuses on Energy Efficiency

The call has been issued to US government agencies to improve their energy efficiency. Bringing change to an organization the size of the government can seem like turning a battleship, but new mandates and funding are on the way to help steer the ship.

In December 2007, the US Department of Energy finalized regulations that required all new federal buildings to be 30% more energy efficient than previous construction. The Obama administration has upped the ante to 40% in the next five years. In addition, the recent economic stimulus package includes a number of provisions to increase energy efficiency. The plan allocates close to $5 billion to improve the energy efficiency of nearly three-quarters of federal buildings. 

In addition, the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) program releases $2.6 billion in federal grants to units of local government, Indian tribes, states, and territories to reduce energy use and fossil fuel emissions. If you’re curious to know how this money is being allocated, check out this interactive map.

Much of this funding will be spent to retrofit current buildings; those improvements will include new windows, better lighting, and more efficient HVAC systems. Once these are installed and the initial benefits and cost savings are realized, government agencies need to ensure the upgraded equipment remains efficient to maximize the benefit to the environment and maintain cost savings.

Public sector organizations can save tax payer dollars and maximize green investments for the long term by following these guidelines:

1. Establish a baseline of energy usage. Once all of the upgrades have been completed, measure the energy required to operate the facility.


2. Monitor energy consumption on individual assets. While it’s important to monitor a facility’s overall consumption, you have to understand the behavior of each asset and how energy requirements change over time. This concrete data provides definitive evidence of where the problems are and how best to take corrective action.


3. Make energy a priority in your maintenance strategy. It’s one of the best kept secrets in maintenance—energy consumption is key to predicting future problems. Unexpected increases (or decreases) in energy consumption can help you identify the asset and determine the cause of the problem before it escalates. This saves energy and also reduces the cost of future maintenance, inventory, and equipment failure.


4. Deploy software tools that incorporate energy to drive a strategic asset management program for your facilities. The complexity of modern facilities makes it nearly impossible for individuals to tackle this task alone. Enterprise asset management solutions that track energy consumption take the burden of juggling thousands of assets at once off facility managers.

For a closer look at the role of enterprise asset management for energy efficiency at facilities, see our report on Infor EAM and Continuous Commissioning. Developed by Texas A&M University, Continuous Commissioning is a facilities operations program implemented at over 300 Federal buildings, resulting in a 20% reduction in utility costs and a payback in less than two years.

Posted by Bob Benstead, VP Strategic Planning, Infor Public Sector

Will the Recession Kill Sustainability?

The question on everyone’s mind today is: How will the global economic downturn impact green and sustainability initiatives? The easy assumption to make is that the only green that matters in a recession is the kind that you can put in your wallet.

In my opinion, the recession may signal a real beginning for sustainability. Leaner times are moving industry past the marketing of sustainability -the faddish, feel-good “green washing” that merely scratches the surface- toward initiatives that deliver real and immediate operational benefits. Companies get excited about ROI and profitability. There are ample opportunities within organizations for sustainability initiatives to deliver just that.

Infor recently commissioned a survey of manufacturing companies in the UK. Over half of the survey respondents said they had no plans to postpone their green investments due to the economic climate. In fact, 56% said they plan to increase their investments over the next 12 months. Even for companies that don’t see a direct operational benefit, many are moving forward because of the business risk associated with doing nothing.

Stephen Stokes of AMR Research pointed this out on a recent Infor-hosted webinar, “Carbon Management: The Business Imperative.”  Stephen is Vice President of Sustainability and Green Technologies at AMR, so he knows quite a bit about the subject to say the least. (I encourage anyone who needs a primer on the green transformation to download the webinar recording because Stephen offers many valuable insights.)

Stephen’s research (illustrated in the slides below) indicates that companies today are most concerned with real time costs, primarily energy. By 2010 though, risks from government regulations, carbon footprinting, and carbon trading grow significantly in the eyes of executives. Many of these same executives are moving now to stay ahead of legislation, which is already happening in places like the UK, Europe, and Australia.

What does all this mean for green technologies? In my opinion, it validates Infor’s approach from the beginning. Our view was that companies would invest in green technologies that provided tangible economic benefit and reduced business risk. These are primarily at the line of business level- energy efficiency in facilities, reducing fleet fuel consumption, reducing the carbon impact of your distribution network, and eliminating waste in manufacturing processes- through solutions like network design for the supply chain, enterprise asset management, and product lifecycle management. 

Dashboards and corporate-wide reporting efforts are important, especially longer term, but these kinds of broad technology initiatives are the ones that will struggle during the recession, in my opinion, because they don’t directly address immediate business imperatives. It’s much easier to sell management on sustainability projects with a clear ROI, ones that impact the bottom line or eliminate business risk, and then build on those successes.

For these reasons, I think sustainability is poised for a new beginning. And the real champions of green through the recession will be the plant managers, facilities directors, and supply chain professionals rather the corporate vice president of sustainability.

Posted by Andrew Kinder, Director of Product Marketing, Supply Chain Management