Patties Foods has been a Lawson customer since 2005, following rapid organisational growth. Since first going live with the Lawson solution, in early 2006, it has achieved significant improvements in reporting processes and access to timely information, as well as expediting month-end procedures and providing staff with more time to analyse data and act upon it.

“Before implementing Lawson, we had considerable duplication of effort within our previous system. We have been able to eliminate much of this in the transition to M3,” says Zelko Erdec, general manager of information technology at Patties Foods.

In 2008, Patties Foods upgraded to Lawson M3 7.1 technology, which separated Lawson M3 applications from Lawson M3 technology. This is helping the company future-proof its investment and avoid disruptive upgrades. This has also led to further efficiency gains across operational and supply chain processes.

“The Lawson solution has helped deliver benefits right across our business, including better finished-goods, inventory tracking, optimising raw materials’ purchasing, promotion and handling of frozen goods in the retail chain, and increased real-time data visibility,” says Erdec.

“It has also provided us with the ability to critically review our business processes and simplify these wherever possible.”

On the distribution side, the solution has helped Patties Foods to better manage its finished-goods picking process, which is carried out in third-party storage locations, especially when it comes to inventory selection on a ‘first-in, first-out’ basis. It has also assisted in establishing better electronic inventory control between Patties Foods and its cold storage providers.

“The new Lawson system has given us the ability to provide better customer service,” says Erdec.

 “Not only has it helped us reduce the need for time-consuming reconciliations and frequent physical stock-takes, it has also delivered better interoperability between us and our supply-chain partners, which has improved our ability to collaborate and, ultimately, meet the demands of the major retailers.”

A growing need
Patties Foods’ decision to implement a new ERP system came as a result of rapid growth, following its acquisition of the Four ’n Twenty, Herbert Adams and Nanna’s brands from the American-owned Simplot Australia, in 2003.

According to Erdec, “The acquisition meant that Patties Foods instantly grew several times larger. Naturally, this increased our stock-keeping units (SKUs) and the number of transactions going through the system, which prompted our need for better and more reliable information.

“We are a company that continues to seek growth opportunities, new product development and innovation. We’re aware that without a capable solution in place, we would be unable to support this growth,” continues Erdec.

“The Lawson solution has given us both the capability and flexibility to deploy a highly configurable and adaptable materials requirements planning (MRP) system, which is essential for our increased manufacturing capacities and efficiencies. Our ERP capabilities now deliver better manufacturing data and reporting, and have allowed us to improve the visibility of our manufacturing function, including our raw materials processing.”

Why Lawson?
Patties Foods chose Lawson over other key competitors because of its extensive, and demonstrated, experience in the Australian food and beverage market, as well as its strong customer references in this sector and its proven ability to implement promptly.

“Overall, the Lawson solution came out in front of the competition, particularly with its industry-specific functionality,” says Erdec. “From our perspective, the Lawson solution was by far the best fit for our business. We are both mid-sized organisations, so it’s easier to develop a more personal relationship. Lawson also impressed us by leading the way with its Java-based platform, which we saw as an attractive option, as it provides an adaptable, state-of-the-art code that won’t be phased out any time soon. This allows us to future-proof our investment.”

Erdec highlighted how Lawson’s Java technology and IBM partnership was an added attraction as it “provides a cost-effective, reliable option for our expansion plans. We also benefit from the scalability and reliability provided by the IBM iSeries platform on which the Lawson system runs.”

Patties Foods’ major customers include retail chains, which continually demand changes such as full electronic data interface (EDI) compliance.

The Lawson solution provides Patties Foods with a platform that can more readily adapt to comply with such requests.

“We saw the Lawson solution as ‘best-of-breed’ and most suitable for fast-moving consumer goods companies such as Patties Foods.

At the time of our initial evaluation of ERP systems, Lawson demonstrated that it had already completed implementations with two other food companies that had information needs similar to ours in terms of being key strategic suppliers to the major retailers,” says Erdec.

Patties also installed PACS software, which works with the Lawson system, to manage its retail discounts, rebates and promotions activities – a key part of sales.

“This combination has improved the company’s speed and visibility of data in this area,” says Erdec.

“This area is notorious amongst retail chain suppliers for being difficult to manage and control, but the PACS/Lawson solution has provided us with a favourable outcome and a significant improvement over the previous system. The combination also provides our sales and marketing team with an integrated strategic planning tool, to assist in managing retail strategies, which has allowed us to more accurately plan and forecast around our production requirements.”

Across the company, the implementation of the Lawson solution has allowed Patties Foods to review and improve its business processes.

“As we’ve become more familiar with some of the advanced features of the system, we have been able to dramatically reduce paper flow within the organisation, as well as our dependence on manual spreadsheets and other manually produced ocumentation. The system has also helped us minimise our use of external databases, as well as transfer intellectual property back on to a single information platform that can be easily and appropriately accessed,” says Erdec.

Phased implementation
The Lawson solution was selected by Patties Foods in early 2005.

The company chose a phased approach to implementation with the first stage being the deployment of manufacturing, distribution, financials and warehousing applications. Go-live successfully occurred in early 2006. The company then looked to the second phase, which was the MRP implementation.

“Our successful implementation has been due to the immense commitment and contribution of the internal project team,” says Erdec. “We benefited from excellent management and process owners who really understood their particular areas of the business and what they wanted from M3.

Overall, the outcome has been very positive, as the Lawson solution has helped us improve accountability and accuracy within our manufacturing processes.”

In 2009, Patties Foods also implemented Lawson Learning Accelerator, to train staff on Lawson software systems. The solution allows the company to create customised, role-based training simulations and documentation to help effectively train and introduce employees to new software systems and capabilities.

“The beauty of Lawson Learning Accelerator is that it provides us with a single set of instructions and standard documentation that can be issued company-wide,” says Erdec.

The future
Patties Foods today is still looking to future growth. And Lawson’s Java-based platform will ensure ready scalability, while the sophistication of Lawson 3 applications will help the business grow without the need to simultaneously expand support staff.

“The improved information allows the company to strategically review our product range and our customer base, and make better, more informed strategic decisions,” Erdec says.

 “Through the process of business workflow and integration that formed the second phase of the implementation, we were able to adapt to growth, by building capacity into our IT applications and the day- to-day demands on our staff.

“As the solution is used by many suppliers to the major retailers, we believe this accumulated expertise will directly benefit the evolution of the software, to everyone’s benefit.

“Our technology platforms are sound and our ability to handle the growing needs of our customer base has been greatly enhanced through implementing Lawson platform,” says Erdec.

“Now that the core systems are in place, and we are reaping the benefits of improved functionality, we can look to making further enhancements with the implementation of solutions such as Lawson M3 Sales and Marketing Automation, Demand Planner and Production Planner. These future projects form part of our overall view that our IT systems are an enabler to help us perform tasks more efficiently and so stay ahead of the competition,” concludes Erdec.






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