Industry: Fish
Eisvogel is Austria’s leading fish processing company. The manufacturer based in Upper Austria supplies mainly trout, char and carp products as well as sea fish to its over 6,000 customers. The challenging logistics is facilitated by the industry-specific IT solution of CSB-System.
Several times a week, Eisvogel supplies approximately 4,800 retail shops as well as 1,200 hotels, restaurants, caterers and the fish wholesalers of the country and partly in Germany. Over 100 products and more than 450 items are available in the trade and food serving industry throughout Austria. In order to meet the high standards in quality and freshness, Eisvogel has been relying on the industry-specific ERP software of CSB-System for many years. “We made a farsighted decision when we chose the CSB-System to optimize our procedures as a whole,” says the managing director. Due to the efficiency the industry software entails in production, communication and logistics, Eisvogel now owns a market share of approximately 70 per cent.
Individual labelling
At receiving, the living fish are entered in the system via a supply lot number in order to enable traceability. “Atlantic salmon, pangasius, tilapia or sea fish are usually delivered as fillet. For the semi-finished products, the weight and catch data like catch zone, sub-catch area and fishing gear category are entered,” explains quality manager Doris Rößler.
The employee in charge of slaughtering the fish electronically receives data of what has to be fished and prepared. Via a slide, the batches of fish are moved into a “killing box”. Afterwards they are brought to a slaughter machine where they are disemboweled. They are either packed as whole fish, fillets or fillet portions. At the respective data capture points, the filled packages are weighed and labeled individually: There is no equalization. Besides weigh price labeling, the whole weight transfer is included in labeling. The IT system relies on inventory information and batch data. The data of the weighing and packaging processes are immediately registered in the system to make them available for the inventory posting and for Sales. The production step combines production order, customer order and inventory posting with item or customer picking: one item is processed for several customer orders or several items are picked according to customers.
In the wholesale and restaurant area, the price weighing systems issue labels via a print head, which are stuck manually onto the container. On the lines for food retail, labeling is made with top labelers. The label includes the EAN 128 code. “The biggest part leaves the plant under the Eisvogel brand, however, labels can also be customerspecific,” says Doris Rößler. Specific label or print layouts are set up in the CSB software for the different customers. After creating the single label, a totals label is printed so the box can be prepared for delivery. In the cold storage, customer-specific picking is performed using the EAN 128 code. Eisvogel organizes route planning with the help of the integrated route management in the CSB-System. Thus, the loading sequence of the trucks is optimized.
The connection to the field service saves time and money
The Eisvogel sales representatives are also connected via the Mobile Enterprise Resource Planning (M-ERP) component of the CSB-System software. Today, the field service, which is equipped with laptops, can dial quickly and easily into the central system via a SSL/VPN connection. Thus, the sales representatives can check on site at the customer, which quantity of the requested goods are still on stock. Moreover, the correct prices can be determined online and in real time, so that promises regarding availability and delivery date can be fully observed.
“We could save resources in the back office with the field service solution. Furthermore, we can finish the order entry at the customer on site 1,5 to 2 hours earlier as the customers can immediately order online,” says Hubert Bernegger. In addition, there is much less stress in the back office since the orders come in throughout the whole day and are directly entered in the system.
