Food waste is something that we hear an increasing amount about: both the financial cost (circa £19 billion) and the environmental impact (6.7million tonnes of waste associated with 25 million tonnes of greenhouse gases). More effective planning in the production process can create a 40-50% reduction in raw materials inventory, which, in turn, reduces the amount of food waste.
Whether for financial, environmental, or a combination of both reasons, switching to tried and tested production scheduling software is a way to make planning simpler while reducing costs.
Planning is absolutely everything
Working in the FMCG sector, you’ll be all too aware of how true this statement is and, if you’re the planner in your organisation, you’ll be especially aware of this. The sector is under immense pressure due to increasingly fierce global competition, which is a permanent state of affairs. There are also the, hopefully temporary, reduced quantities of key raw materials that are available. Each, and especially both when combined, means that there’s an ever-increasing demand to increase the accuracy of planning.
Reducing food waste means that you need to invest less into ingredients or other product components to produce the same amount of output.
The impact of automated production planning software is reducing food waste
Having automated software in place allows planners and finance directors peace of mind that they’re only spending the required amount on food products. In turn, this reduces the possibility of producing surplus amounts or being left with expired food, which will have to be thrown away.
Production planning and scheduling software, such as Opcenter APS, improve the synchronisation of your manufacturing processes. Moving from an Excel spreadsheet to this provides you with greater visibility and control that increases utilisation and on-time delivery in addition to reduced inventory levels and waste. It’s important to recognise that software of this nature isn’t intended to replace the role of the planner: that would be impossible. Its purpose is to help the planner and remove the amount of time spent on manual calculations or spreadsheet management.
If you’re interested in trialling our production planning software to see how your organisation can reduce food waste, we’d love to hear from you. Get in touch!