Customer Story: Roger Wood Foods Solves Catch Weight Need

Highlights

When Roger Wood Foods’ heavily customized ERP system became outdated, the meat processor began looking at food-specific software with built-in catch weight functionality. Since then, Roger Wood Foods has been able to:


Plenty of software out there can handle either catch weight or standard weight products, but none except JustFood can handle both.

Adger Ross, IT Director

Roger Wood Foods

Roger Wood Foods is a family owned and operated meat processor specializing in smoked sausage and other smoked meats. The 100,000-square-foot facility in Savannah, Georgia, produces more than 400,000 pounds of product a week that is distributed to national and regional grocery stores, including Walmart, Food Lion, Publix and Kroger. The SQF-certified company employs approximately 200 people at their plant, warehouse and head office in Savannah.

The Challenge

Roger Wood Foods initially used a Microsoft Dynamics NAV-based ERP system that had been heavily customized to handle the company’s need for calculating standard weights and catch weights, a function unique to the meat processing industry. The system quickly became outdated, however, and when Microsoft began to retire the older Navision product, Roger Wood Foods began searching for a new, food-specific ERP system.

Adger Ross, now the Director of IT at Roger Wood Foods, was an independent software consultant at the time and helped the company investigate ERP vendors. These vendors included SAP BusinessOne in conjunction with Batchmaster, Syspro, a handful of smaller, boutique-style software providers and JustFood.

“Although some vendors claimed to be able to handle catch weights, they were small companies that I had never heard of,” says Ross. “We wanted to know our ERP partner was going to be around for the long run.”

Ultimately, JustFood was selected by Ross and his team because of its commitment to develop the functionality Roger Wood Foods needed and because of its easy upgrade path. “JustFood manages customizations in a different manner, meaning that upgrading is always an option. That was a big, big factor for us.”

The Solution

Roger Wood Foods went live with JustFood in September 2012. Since then, the company has worked alongside JustFood to fine-tune its catch weight functionality. “There is a solid foundation for catch weight that will continue to improve with future versions,” says Ross. “I would definitely recommend JustFood. The software functionality is very good and as long as the product continues to grow, we’ll continue to grow alongside as a customer and as a partner.”

The Benefits

Since implementation, Roger Wood Foods has been able to improve its processes and make its workforce more efficient. One of the biggest changes since implementation is the company’s warehousing processes. “A huge factor for us was JustFood’s containerization functionality,” says Ross. This functionality allows us to pick a container full of cases without having to scan each individual case.” For meat processors in particular, this helps solve the issue of catch weights. A single scan of a container’s license plate will account for the various weights of each case.

In addition to improving warehousing functionality, Roger Wood Foods is now also able to better track all inventory transactions specific to individual catch weights. For example, the cost of manufactured and purchased inventory is based on the actual weight of the case, providing more accurate visibility into cost distribution.

The Future

Roger Wood Foods went live with the Quality Management piece of JustFood later in 2013 and is looking to integrate JF Plant – a standalone application that brings shop floor functionality to the desktop or any Windows device – in the near future.