Labor Benefits Achieved Through Traceability Profiled in Automationmedia.com


by Thomas Cutler - Date: 2008-09-08 - Word Count: 575 Share This!

The labor benefits from traceability are significant according to manufacturing journalist Thomas R. Cutler in the current issue of AutomationMedia.com.  Many food companies use piece rate systems to pay employees. Most of the systems are manual - both for collecting information and calculating the payroll. Often these manual systems require that the employees self-report the number of cartons packed via a form they provide to a supervisor. The supervisor visually reviews the form and then files it with the payroll department, which has a clerk enter the data into a computer system.

The key disadvantage of this type of system the self-reported production is often more than the enterprise's total production, meaning that some employees are being overpaid for their true production and there is no precise way to know who is not telling the truth. This inefficient process also requires the employee to take time keeping track of his or her production, for the supervisor to review the reported piece rate, and for the payroll clerk to key-in the report. Transcription data-entry errors are common.

Traceability provides production and plant managers a new toolset for realizing value and boosting profits as well as addressing labor issues - cost, productivity, and labor-related quality. Nowhere is the impact of traceability more apparent than in the food industry; hiring and keeping trained labor remains an ongoing management challenge. According to William R. Pape, Founder and Executive Vice President of SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) traceability technology TraceGains, "Managers want to know how they can effectively reward the best employees, improve labor productivity, and provide focused training for employees who need it. Well-designed traceability systems can generate both the raw information and the visualized on-line reporting tools that can help any management team get the most out of its labor pool."

An effective traceability system preserves identity across product transformations, building the pedigree of a finished product shipped to the customer. By identifying the employees who worked on each piece and part, we know who had some part in producing a single item.

 

TraceGains, Inc. (www.TraceGains.com) was founded in 1998 with a 100% focus on Positively Assured Traceability™. The company has a patented delivery system-14 patents granted and growing-and also is an authorized Issuer of United States Department of Agriculture Process Verification Program (PVP) Label.

By providing real-time, bi-directional Positively Assured Traceability for food, beverage, and CPG supply chains, TraceGains reduces risks to the corporation and its executives, who may become personally liable in case of a recall, if unable to comply with the FDA's 24-hour traceability requirement.

Positively Assured Traceability provides protection to subscribing companies by delivering:

-         Continuous attribute visibility for each incoming ingredient receipt.

-         Identity preservation of each received material across commingling, batching, blending, transformation, co-pack, and re-work.

-         Creation of a secure Private TraceStream Data Repository which can be used for continuous compliance monitoring, constantly comparing on-floor activities with business rules and compliancy requirements.

TraceGains is not just about reducing risk; these unique technology solutions help companies turn disparate data into actionable business and value chain intelligence; it turns traceability from a cost center into a profit center. TraceGains customers typically experience a better than 300% return on investment (ROI), and an average profitability increase between 3-5%. Independent, peer-reviewed university studies confirm these findings.

Only TraceGains provides bi-directional unit-level (item, carton, pallet) Positively Assured Traceability to consolidate multiple legacy data sources and reduce corporate recall risk, while simultaneously providing the tools to boost profitability and cost-effectively improve operational excellence.

 

TraceGains Inc.

www.tracegains.com

Marc Simony, Director of Marketing

traceability@tracegains.com

(303)682-9898


Related Tags: food supply chain traceability, food supply chain safety, food traceability service

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