In the globalization economic development, most of industries have been developing strategies to improve efficiency in their production processes. Meanwhile, chili pepper supply chain is still not aware about efficiency and effectiveness in its management. Most actors in chili pepper supply chain face several obstacles, i.e. losses, waste products, and inefficiency in delivery time. This research is focused on the development of chili pepper supply chain performance using Value Stream Mapping (VSM) analysis and aims to create a new key system to develop efficiency and effectiveness. VSM is used as an instrument to enhance comparative advantage in wildly industries. VSM in chili pepper involves operation system such as 6S, Volkswagen production system, visual workplace, quick changeover system, and Hiejunka Kanban system. Those techniques are applied to reduce waste in chili pepper supply chain. The research result shows that chilli pepper supply chain should explore the implementation of VSM.
Inventory & Recipe System Essentials
There is a core set of features that you should look for in any comprehensive inventory and recipe management system. These important features are discussed in this blog.
Inventory Management
A restaurant inventory management system should include features for ordering and receiving inventory items. Ideally, the ordering features will include order guides, par levels, and suggested reorder levels. Ideally, the receiving function will be interfaced with your vendor or AP automation systems to automatically import invoices.
For chain restaurants, an inventory system should include a feature for transferring inventory items from one restaurant to another. A transfer should decrement stock and cost from the transferor and add it to the transferee. Ideally, transfer requests can be initiated by the restaurant that is looking for stock, and fulfilled by the restaurant providing the stock.
An inventory management system should also include the ability to count and value your inventory. Ideally, the counting of inventory can be done on a mobile device or via a worksheet. Most systems can value ending inventory using either the last cost or weighted average cost for items. Some systems also offer a FIFO (first in, first out) as a valuation option.
An inventory management system should calculate your inventory usage at an item level as well as an aggregated level that is in-line with how your track your cost of goods sold (COGS). The accounting formula for this is: Beginning inventory, + purchases, +/- transfers, – ending inventory = Actual Usage and COGS.
Your system should be interfaced with your accounting system to import your chart of accounts, export invoice information to accounts payable, export transfer adjustments, and export ending inventory valuation adjustments to your general ledger.
Recipe Management:
Ideally, your inventory management system will be integrated with a recipe management system. Recipe management should provide features for building and costing recipes. Your inventory system should provide the ability to define recipe units, adjust them for yield, and continuously update inventory item cost changes to the recipes.
Recipe management should include the ability to use different recipe units for the same ingredient in different recipes. For example, onions might be used by the weighted ounce in one recipe, by the cup in another, and by the each in yet another recipe. Recipe management should also accommodate metric measures for recipe units.
Ideally, a recipe for a menu item (an item you sell) can be modeled against a target cost percentage to determine what price the item should sell for to achieve the target. The actual dollar cost and the cost as a percentage of the current menu item price should also be provided.
Some recipe management systems include “production” features. Production enables you to track items that you prepare in a batch (like a 5-gallon batch of chili). When you produce the chili, the ingredients are depleted from inventory. With production, you can also compare theoretical to actual usage for chili (if your system is interfaced with your POS).
The ability to include preparation instructions, pictures, steps, and equipment; as well as the ability to scale recipes to different portions, will make recipe management more valuable. You can generate a “recipe book” or display recipes for prep or line-cooking staff.
Food and Beverage Cost Analysis:
When you add an interface to your POS system you gain the ability to report what your theoretical costs should be and what your theoretical inventory usage should be. You can then compare theoretical to actual to determine variances and isolate problems such as theft, over-portioning, waste, etc.
An inventory and recipe system that includes a POS interface should also provide you with an analysis of your menu performance (menu engineering). What menu items are not in-line with your targets? Which menu items are contributing the most profit (stars) or which ones are not (dogs).
CUSTARD STAND CHILI
The Top Line
Custard Stand’s sales increased tenfold and they needed traceability software to manage the volume. With Mar-Kov’s software, Custard Stand Chili now:
Executes a mock recall in minutes.
Tracks all inventory.
Automatically posts data into QuickBooks.
Generates electronic batch records for all batches.
“
“With Vittles, mock recalls are so easy – it’s beautiful”
— “ - Jamilyn Beekley, Office Manager, Custard Stand
Custard Stand – Searching for Traceability
Custard Stand Food Products, located in Webster Springs, WV, makes delicious Hot Dog Chili and Chili Soup. The company provides product to distributors/retailers and sells directly to customers online and in The Custard Stand restaurants.
In 2003, Dee and Angie Cowger converted a three-bay car wash behind their family restaurant to a USDA-approved production facility and launched Custard Stand Food Products. In February 2016, the Cowgers pitched both products on ABC’s reality show “SHARK TANK,” and while they didn’t get a deal, the appearance dramatically increased retail and online sales.
Custard Stand’s facility regularly produces and packages more than 4,000 pounds of hot dog chili and chili soup. Custard Stand’s success increased demand for products at large retailers such as Wal-Mart, Kroger, and Sam’s Club, smaller chains, and independently owned stores.
The company’s rapid growth strained the limits of Custard Stand’s Excel/paper system for tracking inventory and production. Staff members devoted a great deal of time and energy to preparing for food safety audits and mock recalls.
MAR-KOV: VITTLES
In order to improve inventory control, planning operations, and to more efficiently maintain food traceability records, Custard Stand recognized it needed a food manufacturing purpose-built software system. The company also wanted to keep its QuickBooks accounting system.
Custard Stand found Vittles, food manufacturing software created by Mar-Kov Computer Systems.
"With Vittles, checking our entire inventory only takes a few clicks!"
– Jamilyn Beekley
FOOD TRACEABILITY
Custard Stand had a number of SOPs designed to ensure it was compliant and audit ready. To ensure that these SOPs were being followed, staff spent a lot of time checking and re-checking SOPs. Multiple team members also spent hours examining batch records and testing information to catch errors. And they all feared paper records would be misplaced, damaged by a coffee spill or accidentally tossed in a trash can.
MOCK RECALL
With the paper-based system, mock recalls became a real hassle. The process involved retrieving and cross-referencing multiple receiving, production, and shipping records, going back and forth between records maintained in QuickBooks and the filing cabinet. Staff often worked late or neglected other tasks to complete these tasks within the legislated time constraints.
VITTLES TRACK AND TRACE
Vittles records all lot information and barcodes for raw materials at the point of receipt. Now, Custard Stand records each lot used in its batches electronically. Similarly, they record lot numbers at the time of shipping by barcode-scanning the assembled sales orders – both wholesale orders for retailers as well as web orders.
“We do a quarterly mock recall that used to put us under a lot of pressure to compile results within the time constraints set by our annual auditors. With Vittles, mock recalls are so easy—it’s beautiful!” - Jamilyn Beekley.
Lot and quality tracking is now accomplished as a part of regular business operations – receiving inventory, executing batches, shipping – so Custard Stand achieves traceability without additional labor overhead and all the double checking they were accustomed to before system implementation.
Performing a recall is now a process that takes less than two minutes. Custard Stand can key in a lot number and generate a full traceability log in moments. Retrieving testing records, shipment dates, and customer/supplier contact information is just one click away
INVENTORY CONTROL AND PLANNING
Custard Stand’s system provides accurate, instantaneous inventory lookups. Employees no long rely on difficult-to-maintain spreadsheets or run to the warehouse to check on stock and expiration dates. Through a series of informative reports, Custard Stand’s staff can learn quickly and clearly what is available and what isn’t.
Furthermore, based on Custard Stand sales records and BOMs, Vittles MRP (Material Requirements Planning) functionality provides a detailed plan of what materials need to be purchased and manufactured, with quantities and dates specified. The company no longer experiences surprise inventory shortages that result in the inability to ship products to distributors and customers.
QUICKBOOKS INTEGRATION
Vittles provided a seamless QuickBooks integration. Custard Stand bookkeeping and accounting personnel didn’t have to learn a new process to access reports and needed information. Vittles handles all of the data entry and Custard Stands enjoys an improvement in the accuracy and timeliness of the data available.
Mar-Kov Vittles’ impeccable service pleasantly surprised the Custard Stand team. At the start of the integration, Project Manager Sylvain served as their point of contact for all training, questions, and support needed to get the Custard Stand employees up to speed. After a year, Sylvain remains the primary point of contact when the staff has questions.