Solutions for Beverages
Beverage manufacturers and their related industry partners are under increasing pressure to maintain or improve margins while meeting the consumers changing needs for sustainable performance, effective recycling programs and healthier for you products. Over 65% of what consumers drink comes from packaged products, making packaging one of the largest environmental issues any company in the industry will face. There are several initiatives that beverage manufacturers and their related industry partners can incorporate to help them drive business and reduce costs.
Integration of financial, inventory and distribution data using tools already familiar to your staff, to reduce transaction costs and drive stronger margins.
Process manufacturers have a common need to control some of their production processes with batch calculations and other aspects, such as final packaging and labeling, with discrete functionality. Business operations that run smoothly with fully integrated inventory, finance and distribution tools minimize distraction, leaving more resources to focus on product development, merchandising innovation and developing new markets. Horizons International offers scalable formula and ingredient management, with real time perpetual inventory and cost control, production and material planning, cradle to grave lot control and quality management all on an affordable Microsoft DynamicsGP platform with tools that are already familiar to your staff. Implementation can be rapid and low cost ensuring you achieve your goals quickly and with minimum distraction to your business.
Managing inventory and performance through contract manufacturers.
Many beverage distributors are heavily dependent on their relationships with the bottling and co packing manufacturers that support them. Managing the relationship takes strong communication and effort. Managing the inventory and data related to production processes on a remote basis is also challenging. In industries where time really is money efficient record keeping that easily integrates to well understood user applications can be key to both timeliness and accuracy of inventory reporting. The Horizons Manufacturing Suite of products specifically targets the needs of these outsourcing activities. Whether it is high speed bottling or filling lines or managing remote inventories of customer supplied materials the tight integration between the manufacturing, financial and distribution functionality reduces overhead cost for transactions and provide real time reporting capabilities.
Consumer sustainability preferences for energy conservation and materials recovery are cost control strategies that benefit manufacturers too.
The going green philosophy of consumers matches the marketplaces demonstrated preference for healthier for you products. Manufacturers who respond with equipment upgrades that deliver purer products, reduce energy consumption and recover usable by products can win in a big way. Meeting the customers need for sustainable manufacturing and recovery of waste products in a way that ensures full utilization of the supply stream can be a method of demonstrating a manufacturers commitment to more than the bottom line. But part of the challenge becomes how to track and account for these realizable but non traditional production outputs in a timely and cost effective manner. The functionality in the Multi Product Production module from Horizons International is designed to support manufacturers as they strive to incorporate this additional data into their business model so that they can reliably track all sources and outputs of production with minimum transaction overhead.
Managing packaging changes effectively can reduce costs and improve product appeal.
The challenge of packaging cost versus package content requires focus on details and planning. As consumers become more aware of tightening economic times, begin to work more hours in response to economic restrictions and embrace the healthy for you trends the right packaging method will be important for product success. Resources for industry in the form of advisory groups are on the increase. But ultimately it is about having the right tools to plan and manage inventory. Product changes must be effectively managed so that packaging inventories are right sized. The inventory control and fill batches functionality in Horizons International Manufacturing Suite specifically targets supporting manufacturers plan for accurate inventory consumption of all materials including packaging, reducing inventory carrying costs and easing the planning and execution process for procurement.