The meat industry is one of the highly regulated industries in the USA. The various pathogens that may stem from the contamination of meat may induce a harmful impact on humans. The recent outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic that starts from the meat market is a strong reminder of the potential risks associated with the consumption of contaminated meat.
Most health risks associated with meat consumptions stems from the conditions in which animals are kept. Also, any potential negligence during the supply chain or storage of meat may contaminate the meat. This is one reason why there is a growing concern among regulators and the general public about the quality and safety of meat and meat-based products. However, suppliers of meat and manufacturers of meat-based products may find it hard to comply with ever stringent regulations, at a time when the market is also becoming more competitive.
All of these factors add to the woes of businesses associated with the meat industry, as they strive to keep up with the regulatory compliance, which is often too complex and intricate to keep up with. Without adequate systems and processes in place, the situation may lead businesses to suffer inefficient production, and missed targets.
Understanding the Complexity of Regulatory Compliance in the Meat Industry
To address the growing concern of consumers about the origin and traceability of meat origin, regulators are constantly revising the regulations to keep up. However, they are also faced with the challenge to understand the woes of the industry and ensure transparency on both ends. In this regard, regulators often take cues and learning from new problems faced by the industry. As mentioned before, the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic from a meat market in China reinforces the importance of stringent regulations to ensure the safety, and quality of meat production.
On part of the meat industry, businesses are also required to keep up with the quality, and reliability of their products to build brand recognition and improve customer loyalty. Any event of recalling a product/batch may utterly destroy the repute of business for the future since it not only spread panic about the brand’s quality leading to massive financial loss but may also lead to strict administrative penalties.
Benefits of ERP Software for Meat Processing
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is a business continuity software that enables businesses to streamline entire operational and administrative processes and automate various business functions. ERP enables businesses to keep up with their regulatory compliance obligations by designing seamless workflow processes and ensuring transparency across all business operations.
Some of the potential benefits of ERP software for the meat processes industry includes;
By integrating a robust ERP system into processes, businesses and ensure greater transparency across all business functions. It also enables businesses to improve the traceability aspect throughout the supply chain process, thus guaranteeing customers of the quality and safety of the products by offering them transparency into the origin of the meat.
2. Quality Control (QC) and safety standards:
The growing demand for robust ERP systems to handle quality control measures in the meat industry has led to the development of specialized ERP software for the meat industry. These platforms bring customized solutions for businesses to put in place strict measures to ensure the quality of the products, as well as, keeping up with regulations. With the right ERP system in place, businesses can ensure;
- Automated monitoring of meat processing operations
- Automated management of storage conditions (temperature, refrigeration)
- Setting up best practices for hygiene and packaging
- Detailed storage documentation
3. Prevent spoilage:
ERP system enables businesses to trace the date and status of meat production. This information is vital to automate the supply and movement of meat products and keep track of fresh, frozen, or spoiled products.
4. Track batch information:
Specialized ERP software for the meat industry also enables businesses to track the batch numbers for the manufactured products. This enables them to keep track of the entire batches of the products, rather than individual products for quality and safety assurance. By tracking the batch information, the meat industry can track the consistency of entire batches and prevent any spoiled batch to hit the market.
5. Respond to recalls:
Taking from the above, since ERP systems enable manufacturers to keep up with all the relevant information of products’ batches, it’s easier for them to respond to any adverse event where recall is required. That’s because all the relevant information is easily available in the ERP system with batch dates, and supplied places, thus making it easy to recall any batch when necessary.
6. Comply with USDA and other food regulations:
As mentioned earlier, the meat industry is among the most regulated industries in the USA, with various complex regulations controlling the quality and safety of the products. With a robust and specialized ERP software for the meat industry, it becomes easier for manufacturers to comply with multiple regulations and avoid getting caught for non-compliance liabilities’
7. Automatically move received products:
ERP software for the meat industry may also assist businesses to automate the inventory of products, thus saving time and labor.
8. Deliver the product on time:
While time is crucial for all industries, it becomes even more significant for meat processors since any delays in operations, packaging, or supply chain may lead to spoilage of the product. With an ERP system integrated into workflow processes, it is possible for meat processors to keep track of the precise date of manufacturing for any batch and communicate the same to customers. Also, by automating the various workflow processes involved in the production and processing of meat, businesses can improve operational efficiency, thus resulting in timely delivery of fresh products in the market.
8. Handle promotional offers:
Some of the more advance and customized meat ERP software offer businesses feature to launch and manage promotional offers. This may include discounts or promotional offers to customers that meet certain conditions. ERP system can integrate all these promos and discount offers with the main accounting system of the business, to keep accurate account books of the company.
9. Real-time overview of business:
With robust ERP software integrated into the system and processes, business meat processors get to access the real-time updates for the performance of various business functions. This ensures that the business leaders are aware of the performance of different operations, and take timely decisions whenever required.
10. Streamline business processes:
By automatically integrating various business functions, the ERP system makes it easier and convenient for meat processors to streamline the data management. This also helps to minimize errors associated with manual data entry, while also increasing the efficiency of the process.
11. Reduce the amount of software and/or integrate them:
ERP system acts as a single unified system to gather, process, and analyze all different business functions. This means that by integrated a specialized meat ERP system, meat processors don’t have to rely on different software to deal with different business functions like accounting, inventory management, supply chain, and others. This also results in more streamlined operations and processes, subsequently leading to higher efficiency and productivity for businesses.
Meat ERP Software – Towards Safe and Hygienic Meat!
Some of the various regulatory measures that must be complied by meat processors in the USA to ensure the safety and quality of meat, or meat-based products include;
- Good manufacturing practices (cGMPs)
- Food & Drug Administration (FDA)
- Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA); and
- Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP)
With a standard and comprehensive ERP system integrated rightly into the business processes and operations, meat processors can ensure compliance with all relevant local, state, national and international regulations. Also, ERP software can help businesses to generate ingredient statements, supplement fact sheets, nutritional labels, and other mandatory reports for FDA and other concerned authorities. Thus, contributing to the overall safety and better quality meat production for consumers.
What is ERP compliance?
ERP compliance enables businesses to record and account for all of the mandatory regulatory requirements. For the meat industry, ERP compliance ensures that the meat processors are able to keep up with the traceability of the batches, as well as, ensure quality control of the products throughout the manufacturing cycle from production, to packaging, storage, and supply chain.
What are the Benefits of ERP Software?
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) represents a business continuity platform that enables businesses to streamline workflow processes and systems by creating a centralized integrated platform. It’s widely used by cross-industry businesses to maximize productivity, lower production costs, and reduce errors. Healthcare, logistics, nonprofit groups, meat processing industry, hospitality, and construction industries are some of the industries that widely used ERP systems for increased productivity and profitability.
How does the ERP system help a company?
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems represent business management platforms that enable companies to maximize their productivity and efficiency based on the suite of automated integrated applications. ERP software automates various business functions and streamlines workflow processes to create agile, leaner, and efficient operations. In simple words, the ERP system acts as the brain for companies, enabling them to achieve more out of the limited resources.