11er Nahrungsmittel GmbH, a major player in the Austrian food industry, is widely known for its commitment to the production of high-quality and special frozen potato specialties.
Despite a sophisticated quality management system, the company was faced with the need to optimize the efficiency of communication with suppliers regarding quality documents. This prompted 11er to look for an automated solution.
In this particular case, the challenge for the food manufacturer was to manage a large number of article and supplier documents in one system. The items are mainly raw materials (goods purchased from suppliers for further processing, e.g. cream cheese, starch, butter or diced bacon). For each of these items and for the suppliers, specific certificates and documents are required, such as product specifications, HACCP flowcharts, risk assessment questionnaires, GMO declarations, organic certificates, GFSI-recognized certificates and many others, which must be obtained, checked, accepted or rejected and filed. All these steps must be documented.
Despite looking at other platforms, Agriplace was chosen for several reasons. The attractiveness of the platform and the excellent customer support convinced 11er. 11er Nahrungsmittel GmbH therefore received a flexible solution that takes into account its specific needs as a processor. The result is a lean document management system with considerable time savings.
Customer statements
"Thanks to Agriplace, we have significantly optimized our processes for requesting, checking and archiving product and supplier-specific documents. We have finally been able to leave time-consuming manual e-mail inquiries behind us. The platform automatically reminds our suppliers to upload certificates and documents and provides them with a quick and easy way to send us all the necessary documentation. By implementing Agriplace, we have achieved a time saving of 30-50% per supplier, allowing us to focus on other quality management tasks and increasing the efficiency of our operations. Thanks to Agriplace, we have found a solution that not only improves our internal processes, but also simplifies collaboration with our suppliers."
"In the past, we had to find out the status of certain documents and certificates from various Excel spreadsheets. We used the tables to compile the data for individual requests to each of our suppliers and sent them by email. Not only was it time-consuming and very labor-intensive, but it was also frustrating to manually request the necessary documents from suppliers - especially if the documents returned were incomplete or incorrect. We entered reminders in our calendar and kept checking with the supplier."
"The information was split into Excel spreadsheets for raw materials, merchandise and suppliers, which made updating the supply chain structure error-prone and finding the information we needed a time-consuming task. These manual processes were not only labor-intensive, but also very difficult for interns to keep track of, for example, so this work could not be delegated."
Implementation and onboarding of Agriplace
During implementation and onboarding, the Agriplace team initially provided an Excel spreadsheet and assisted with data entry. The main work for 11er Nahrungsmittel GmbH consisted of setting the correct tags and occasionally correcting the master data. The rest was done by the Agriplace Customer Success team and 11er Nahrungsmittel GmbH appreciated the support and help provided throughout the process.
Challenge, solution & result
"The introduction of Agriplace has fundamentally improved our workflows. The platform enables us to manage our documents and certificates in a transparent and organized way. Many time-consuming, manual processes are now a thing of the past. Agriplace enables us to present an automatically recorded documentation of the review and acceptance of documents during audits and provides a clear overview of the compliance status of our articles and suppliers."
Accordingly, the time required to manage and check documents has been significantly reduced by using Agriplace. The ability to define requirement rules that help 11er Nahrungsmittel GmbH to systematically collect the necessary information was cited as particularly useful. The result: Agriplace has led to a noticeable increase in efficiency in our quality management.
"The platform offers a variety of helpful functions, including an improved overview of suppliers and articles, optimized management of our requirements and a dashboard for monitoring our tasks. Automated requests, centralized document storage and automatic audit documentation have increased our security during audits. Agriplace makes it easy to demonstrate a comprehensive overview of compliance with requirements."
Essentially, Agriplace has not only optimized workflows, but also increased efficiency, a sense of security and transparency in 11er Nahrungsmittel GmbH's operations.
Tips for companies:
- Choose your tags wisely and carefully to ensure your requirement rules are clear, concise and allow for smooth communication with suppliers.
- Use all the features of Agriplace to save time and effort in document management.
The Agriplace platform has transformed the way 11er Nahrungsmittel GmbH works, helping 11er to become more efficient and secure. The platform provides a comprehensive solution for document and certificate management and significantly optimizes workflows.