Industry: Meat
Robinson Meats, Dublin’s leading catering butcher, is strategically located within the Dublin ring road. This enables them to supply the capital city’s booming restaurant and hospitality trade at short notice with a comprehensive range of meat products, swiftly delivered using their own refrigerated vehicles. With over 2,000 finished product items, picking orders accurately and loading vans efficiently is crucial to avoid costly errors.
Fast moving, high-value stock on countdown
Robinson Meats has over two thousand finished product items, all with a high value and a short shelf life. In such a dynamic, high-pressure environment, products that are inadvertently left on the shelf can rapidly turn into costly write-offs instead of profitable sales.
Faced with these challenges, Robinsons required a robust and reliable system to ensure that the correct cuts reach the right customers on time, every time.
Paperless picking with automatic assignment to route
The ERP system from CSB manages incoming sales orders and all item-specific information, including special customer requirements.
Each customer is assigned to a van route, and new customers are integrated into the most convenient existing routes. CSB’s mobile solution (MERP) then guides the picking employees via wireless handheld scanners, allowing them to directly assemble orders into the correct stack for each van route. This eliminates the need for paper picking lists and reduces the likelihood of errors since all items are scanned. Moreover, van drivers do not need to perform secondary picks of customer trays, as their loads are pre-assembled.
Janet Dooley, Office Manager at Robinsons, is pleased with the system’s features. “We like the way you can assign a customer to a route because that means each customer pick is automatically stacked onto the right van load. The traceability is also great, and we use that a lot because we get such a lot of audits now.”
Traceability
Traceability requirements in the meat processing industry are exceptionally stringent and continue to intensify. However, supply chains can be lengthy and complex, with cattle possibly born, reared, and slaughtered in different countries. The CSB-System can record all these details and retrieve them within minutes.
Essentially, traceability is the outcome of diligent record keeping at each step in the supply chain. By implementing industrial PCs (CSB Rack) connected to weighing scales and mobile scanners CSB facilitates ergonomic real-time data capture at receiving, storage, processing, and picking.
Labelling
Product labelling is an essential means of communicating with the customer, a legal requirement and a fundamental aspect of traceability. Labels contain vital information, with significant commercial and safety implications regarding weights, prices, and allergens.
CSB manages allergen and pricing information centrally in the system – and Robinsons have interfaced scales – so their product labels automatically pick up the correct weight, price, and allergens every time.
All-in-one system
CSB’s Quality Management module facilitates the recording of meat origins at reception and also any other desired QC checks, such as vehicle temperature and condition. Robinsons can freely define and trigger checks in processes at their specific CCPs. This assures product safety and also keeps them audit-ready. “It’s great that everything is all joined up in one system. That way, we are more efficient and more secure.” Henry Farrell, Managing Director of Robinson Meats, is happy to report.
