Industry: Dairy Products | Software: CSB INDUSTRY ERP
Here to stay – this is the motto of Austrian cheese manufacturer Woerle, and their information technology backs up this aim. Woerle promotes digitalization, and the automatic high-bay storage facility as well as the RFID systems in use stand for the modernization of the company. In the end, everything should be highly interconnected – and controlled by the ERP system.
As a cheese manufacturer, Woerle is hugely successful in two markets: selling its hay milk products in Austria, and supplying processed cheese in international markets. The global player exports 51 percent of its annual output of 28,500 tons to 70 countries around the world. The central management unit is their ERP system. “Our ERP enables us to serve the national premium market as well as the global market. We are capable of producing small batches subject to stringent quality requirements with the same level of efficiency as large volumes for the international business,” says Manfred Hager, head of Controlling & Organization.
Farmer payment directly in the ERP system
For the calculation of the milk price, Woerle uses the “Milk Payment” module integrated into the ERP system. This program analyzes the data from the milk trucks as well as the lab values and automatically determines the correct price. Any markups or reductions are calculated in line with quantity and quality ranges. The statement of return deliveries is also performed automatically by the software. The key benefit for Woerle: all specific data is processed in a single system, ensuring a consistent information flow up to Financial Accounting.
All warehouses represented in the ERP
With a new building, Woerle has laid the technological foundation for its international expansion. In 2019, Woerle concentrated its formerly distributed warehouses at one site. The fully automatic high-bay storage facility with two temperature zones has been an important part of the large-scale project. Via the procurement process, the raw materials for cheese and soft cheese go into the high bay warehouse, where an upstream QA test in receiving makes sure that the CSB-System knows the qualities of all incoming raw materials. The key parameters such as lot number and minimum sell-by date as well as features like the fat content of the dry matter or results of the visual inspection are entered in the system. In this way, the tests can be allocated throughout the process, from reception to warehousing and on to the delivery of the finished products.
With the integration of the high-bay storage facility, now all warehouses are represented in the ERP. “In our company, all employees see the same inventory accounts, whether raw materials, finished products, purchased items, or packaging materials. This makes it much easier for us to retrieve stock information.” The user interfaces at the workstations for stock-putaway and stock removal are supplied by CSB too. “It was important to us that all users work with CSB. It’s a lot easier if all employees are working in the same world,” says Hager.
RFID for enhanced production security and accurate traceability
Woerle is now taking an entirely new approach in the labeling of their filling trolleys. Every cart will soon be labeled with a chip, which is registered at the scale with a hand-held scanner during component preparation. At batch processing, the chip is verified automatically by the software and allocated to the batch. The aim is to make inventory management more transparent, to enhance production security and control, and to reduce the losses.
Great progress in the digitized cheese production
Woerle has demonstrated how the ERP system has enabled the end-to-end digitization in the entire company. “We have made good progress on our way towards the digitized cheese production,” says Hager. Yet, this is not all. Additional projects are soon to be implemented, and the family business – now into its fifth generation - is eager to get started: 35-year old Gerrit Woerle will take over as a CEO from his father, Gerhard. In fact, Woerle is here to stay.
