oday you’re “in,” but what about tomorrow? In the ever-changing, fast-paced world that is the produce industry, staying one step ahead of the competition is key. To keep that top spot, you need the software and production tools to stay in front of the game-altering innovations.
“Today, everyone uses paper and clipboards to manage production,” Heather Hammack, President of Famous Software, tells me. “You don’t see flatscreens showing important sales or production metrics everywhere you go, and you can’t follow your products through the production chain with total visibility and instant adaptability. The Work Order Module changes all of that for the production floor.”
This is a new, obtainable reality that Famous Software now offers for produce industry shippers and distributors through its Work Order Module (WOM); operations free from common miscommunications and lag of information, ensuring that users have the resources they need to deliver on customer commitments.
Joined by her team at Famous Software, Marketing Coordinator Ashley Ricchiuti and Sales Manager Natalie Kaita, Heather elaborates on the company’s expanding focus to provide efficient software solutions for distributors and shippers who service value-added products. A solution, Heather tells me, that is embodied in the high-tech WOM innovation and its guarantee to get the right product to the right customer in the shortest time.
In an industry constantly immersed in a barrage of news and advances in robotic-armed technology, Famous Software seems to have found its own breakthrough in this intuitive module specifically for fresh produce suppliers. Serving as the proverbial workhorse of inter-department communication, the WOM is able to give users an empirical view of the entire work order process from the moment the order is first put into the system to its repack and delivery, providing instant calculations and overviews of an order’s cost and resources.
Famous says that its software adapts to any-sized operation, ensuring that worldwide distributors will continue to run a seamless, efficient operation while still providing a set of comprehensive tools for the small, local shipper whose success is contingent on an error-free operation. “We want to ensure that Famous users are managing their resources in the most effective way, from produce, to labor, and to capital,” Heather says.
When asked to walk me through an example of how the module changes operations, Natalie expounds, “That’s where the module really becomes interesting, to both shippers and distributors. This software offers control parameters throughout the entire production. For every action and each stage of the order, there is a foresight and enhanced ability to control the process, which drastically increases users’ ability to efficiently complete orders in line with customer expectations.”
To start, a work order can be initiated by the sales team, where the module’s detailed interface then unfolds in a myriad of instinctual advances as the order moves through the WOM’s key role in production.
From that point on, the module keeps each department easily in sync with the needs of the specific order, from checking inputs, to managing needed resources, scheduling its production, and assigning outputs and priorities.
“The module offers users a unique opportunity to maximize their production opportunities and enhance the value of their software on the production floor, which makes our customers more successful and profitable organizations,” Natalie says as we discuss the innovative new features of the module. One such feature the team highlights, is the WOM’s ability to group similar and finished orders into one production run, increasing efficiency gains.
But the visibility to data, inserts Ashley, is a point that Famous really tries to drive home with the module. “Its versatility of clarity is essential. Giving visibility to the required labor, ingredients, supplies needed for an order, and changes that need to be made instantaneously is what could set a company apart in production quality and quantity.”
Whereas small details could once get lost in the bustle of an order’s movement, each facet is now accounted for, and visible, to every department and user. In addition to this high-tech fluidity, team members are able to update and notate the order throughout its progression to consistently streamline production.
“It’s all about the mentality that this industry is based on, ‘What are we going to make tomorrow, and let’s plan accordingly,”’ affirms Heather.
“Our real goal here, is that this module can be easily utilized and implemented by any-sized company. From the worldwide companies, to the smaller regional operations, the WOM is a simple asset that can drastically improve operations,” explains Heather. “That kind of performance is possible when software is just as customizable and easy to use as the wide range of people who intend to use it. And in this industry? Those possibilities make all the difference.”That forward-thinking mentality is what makes, arguably, the module’s greatest function extend past the quick adaptability of its performance to the versatility it offers for the companies which use it.
The little details of any type of production add up. Thinking of all the small facets of communication, resource changes, commodity updates, and estimated time of completion, I would rather have my pile of small details funneled into a system of increased efficiency, rather than the weighty compilation of its inverse. With images of a work order updating just as fast as its users can address its needs, I believe her. Software matching lightning quick changes that a standard paper file can’t seem to contend with, suddenly seems like a complete overhaul to permanently change the output potential for industry shippers and distributors.
