Euro West has good insight into stocks and traceability has been improved thanks to GreenCommerce
We were visiting Euro West and had a nice chat with Stefan van Marrewijk. Within Euro West, Stefan is mainly concerned with food safety and certifications. He is also the person who is engaged in optimizing the use of GreenCommerce. Together with Bart Bellemans (operational manager) they are continuously looking at how processes / working methods can be improved so that they can stay ahead.
Interview with Stefan van Marrewijk
What is your company mainly specialized in?
"We are mainly involved in packaging for third parties, this is about 80% and the other 20% is in-house trade."
What problem did you run into before using GreenCommerce?
"I started here seven years ago, when we were already working with the old version of GreenCommerce, a less extensive version. After that we completely switched to the new version a few years ago. This took some time, because we also switched to scanners and started working at pallet level. The new variant is a lot more extensive and the working method has completely changed. We no longer have to count the stocks daily. With scanning, this is updated throughout the day and during checks which we do regularly, the stocks appear to be correct. "
What do you mainly do with GreenCommerce? What problems does it solve?
"For us, GreenCommerce is an important program of storing all information about batches that come in. Especially with batches that we package for third parties, it is extremely important that the stocks are 100% correct and that the customers are also informed about what we still have in stock. Especially traceability is very important. In addition, we use the production planning within GreenCommerce. This means that the production department knows exactly what is planned and when the orders will be picked up and should be ready."
How would you feel if you couldn't use GreenCommerce for the next few days? What would you do? Why should you be disappointed?
"Then panic would break out, then we would have to keep track of everything we now register in GreenCommerce manually and with paper, which would take a lot of time."
How do you work with GreenCommerce?
"Because we do a lot of work for third parties / external owners, it is also important to see which costs can be passed on per order."
Via GreenCommerce "services and handling" Euro West registers, among other things, storage and transhipment, sorting, repacking and all kinds of packaging activities. This provides a simple method of processing costs and revenues in the system and gaining insight into this.
"The link between GreenCommerce and Exact is also important for us, for example, for sales administration, and especially invoicing.
In addition, we use WMS ELMO (Easy Logistic Mobile Operator) to easily pick orders. The information for forklift truck drivers has now become much better, because everything used to be memorized, mistakes were sometimes made. ELMO gives us a lot of insight and with this we can manage much more specifically. Now that we use ELMO, it is clearer to the employees in the warehouse which pallets they have to take and where in the warehouse these pallets are located. In a short time and with a smooth transition, ELMO has led to a better insight into the stock for both office and warehouse. "
JEM-id collaboration:
How is the collaboration with JEM-id?
"The collaboration and support is good. We would like to work even more closely so that we can get even more out of the system and new developments."
What are you (not) satisfied with?
"GreenCommerce works satisfactorily as you would expect from the system. We work well with the software, but of course we always keep looking at how we can improve processes and how we can take GreenCommerce into account. We are also satisfied with the support team of GreenCommerce. "
What is going well?
"The system has been put together very well in terms of traceability and everything is easy to find. If you are used to working with it, then everything speaks for itself. The transition from the old to the new system took some getting used to for some colleagues. but in the end it is workable for everyone. It is nice to see how GreenCommerce is currently used throughout the company. A good example of this is production planning. Where in the past the planning was mainly in the head of the warehouse manager, Nowadays, every production order is planned in the visual screen of the production planning. The commercial employees indicate when orders must be ready and then the Production Manager makes his planning in GreenCommerce. In this way it is always clear for all Team Leaders and Machine Operators when a order must start and when the order must be ready.It is also possible for forklift truck drivers through ELMO (in combination with production planning) to see exactly which products should be brought to which machine at which times. "
How do you see the future as a company?
"In terms of sales, things are going to change, in the future much more will go digital instead of by telephone."
How would you envision that?
"I am thinking, for example, of digital price lists, for which your colleague Jimmy came by. We have many different channels where everything comes in, such as Whatsapp, mail, Skype and it would be nice if it came in one place. The fresh produce industry is still a bit behind while there are already solutions for this. We also want to work more with the automatic processing of orders. We now do this with one customer via Excel, we store it on the server and import it via GreenCommerce but this could be faster. We have not tested with FreshBabel yet, but I have read about it and would like to test it soon. "
What are you most proud of?
"Basically everything. We have everything on track and we are also very far with GreenCommerce with which we do everything in one system (no Excel next to it). I think that the working method within the company has improved by using GreenCommerce. We use the system really to be able to work well in terms of traceability and insight for the employees. It is also very important for third parties (importers and exporters), because they are outsourcing a part of their business and we are responsible for dealing with this properly. "
Photo: Bart Bellemans and Stefan van Marrewijk (Euro West).
