Eisberg
Keeping it crisp
Industry: Fruit and Vegetables
Every day, Eisberg AG handles 9,000 sales orders, 80,000 order lines, 25,000 crates picked, and 100 logistics routes. All of this needs to be mapped in the company’s ERP system. The Swiss producer of convenience salads, vegetables, and fruits was looking for a new ERP solution that would suit their needs – in anticipation of their self-developed, highly complex software soon reaching a point where it could no longer be supported.
Eisberg is one of the leading enterprises in its field in Europe, and number one in Switzerland and East Europe. The company headquartered in Dällikon emerged from two Swiss vegetable growing operations and has offered its customers fresh high-quality produce since 1972. Around 1,900 employees supply customers in twelve countries with approx. 53,000 tons of fresh convenience products annually. Operating three production facilities in Switzerland, plus one each in Austria, Poland, Romania, and Hungary, as well as a purchasing organization in Spain, Eisberg supplies retailers, food service businesses, and restaurant chains. Since 2016, Eisberg has been part of the Swiss Bell Food Group. The project described here refers to the entity of Eisberg AG based in Switzerland.
Sophisticated planning of fruits, salads, and vegetables
The new ERP system from CSB should not only replace the previous software developed in-house. The company’s goal has been to create a standardized environment based on the completely integrated ERP system from CSB, and to further modernize and optimize its processes. From the outset, the project team of Eisberg AG had delineated the ambitious tasks for the new ERP system:
- Ultra-fresh – the produce must be ready even before customer orders come in, with a short yet calculable sell-by date. Production scheduling and execution is therefore based on historical data. Every day, 80,000 order lines are inventoried in conjunction with meticulous quality controls, and material requirements are calculated.
- Ultra-fast – Given the extremely short shelf life of the produce and the volatile order volumes, production planning in the system needs to be adjusted in short cycles. This means updates for some 300 articles every minute! On top of that, all countries of origin must be printed on the mixed-leaf salad bags. This task is reliably handled by the completely integrated system-based process.
- Ultra-flexible – Planning and execution is dominated by exigent quality standards. The raw material quality and availability of lettuce and vegetable produce is subject to major seasonal variations. The mixtures therefore can be flexibly adapted and immediately recalculated based on the best raw materials.
Ultra-efficiency with special features
The result is compelling. The multilevel production planning and case calculation features of CSB’s solution guarantee on-time production and delivery of salads and vegetable products, with optimum quantities. This applies to the complete supply chain process at Eisberg, from receiving to order picking.
- Goods receiving “MATCH” = MATerialCHeck – Mobile devices capture the data of incoming goods. In parallel, quality assurance checks are performed on a line-item basis. A CIM solution automatically moves and weighs the pallets in line with this data.
- Online production – The online production replicates three manufacturing stages. Within these stages, no actual quantities are captured. This allows Eisberg to run the production lines at high speed, cutting the throughput time.
- Case calculation – The (forward) calculation of all picking containers (including labels and pallets) and all associated logistics routes has substantially improved efficiency. The system calculates the optimal fill level of the crates for every order based on the product dimensions. Now, a filling degree of more than 90% can be achieved for the single crates. The result is a reduction in the number of pallets, without a change in the item quantity, while truck loads are optimized. This has not only minimized the transport costs, but also effectively reduced the carbon footprint of the products.
System designed for stability and efficiency
The functional specification CSB-System received from Eisberg primarily relates to the core of the new solution: the Case Calculation (CC). Benno Eggenschwiler, consultant and main auditor of the project, meticulously defined the primarily performance-based requirements for the entire team.
One key requirement for the CSB Case Calculation has been that the tool should be practice-oriented and well organized. A wise approach considering the overall goal of having smooth processes! Eggenschwiler is absolutely satisfied with the implementation. The CSB Case Calculation computes the optimum transport volumes and keeps the paths of the operatives as short as possible so order picking never comes to a halt. “CSB has always understood what matters to us – and the outcome has been more than compelling,” Eggenschwiler is happy to report. “We now have a future-proof system that enables both detailed production planning and flexible deliveries.”