Food and Beverage Companies: NetSuite 2020 Release 1 Simplifies Processes with Automation and Greater Visibility Capabilities
Posted by Gavin Davidson, Manufacturing and WD Product Management Director, Oracle NetSuite
Food and Beverage (F&B) manufacturers are forever tied to the changing desires of consumers. Today, that translates to products containing local, natural ingredients for an increasingly health-conscious population. With over three-quarters of the U.S. population reading food labels, F&B companies can count on the fact that consumers are paying attention.
However, the initial response to calls for healthier food has come from small food producers. Fortunately for them, it’s easier than ever to enter the market. Contract manufacturers enable the production of goods at low cost. Digital advertising and social media increases reach without high fees. And it shows up in the market: since 2009, small and midsized CPG companies wrangled $18 billion in U.S. sales from their larger counterparts.
For more established F&B companies, shifting from entrenched strategies and products can take time and restructuring. Much of the effort comes from reengineering processes to support more sustainable foods and reconfiguring outdated technology in favor of faster, more efficient platforms.
NetSuite’s 2020 Release 1 offers a number of enhancements that support the goals of both small and large F&B manufacturers, including increased automation and greater visibility:
- New fill/kill backorder management automatically closes any backordered items and also allows F & B companies to identify exceptions, helping to manage regularly-placed standing orders for specific items.
- New route management can automatically assign the route, stop and delivery time of a given sales order based on the customer’s address, alleviating the challenges of assigning delivery routes. Users can override assigned ship dates if a change is required.
- Customers also routinely submit orders that are several hundred lines long. These repeated orders can be used as a guide for future orders, but they end up with a lot of manual editing when the customer needs to add or subtract quantities. The Order Guide module automatically tracks historical orders and will add items using the order guide flag.
- There’s always been a disconnect between what’s recorded in the system and what’s happening in the warehouse. With NetSuite’s new mobile application for manufacturing, employees on the floor can easily enter data via a mobile device that seamlessly connects to NetSuite WMS. Users can record completions, consume inventory and even add new fields with codeless customization.
- Without centralized, accurate data, it can be difficult to get a handle on production efficiency. Manufacturers can now automatically calculate start and end production dates on work orders based on pre-configured manufacturing tasks. Users will be able to segment efficiency data by product, class, manufacturing location and subsidiary, and then develop accurate recommendations for operational improvements.
- The NetSuite Quality Management application can now handle much larger volumes of sampling data, further speeding up the sampling process. And, the quality inspection tablet includes a suite of new features like auto-advance capability and real-time feedback for inspectors.
Learn More About NetSuite 2020 Release 1
These are just the highlights; there’s much more for food and beverage companies in NetSuite 2020 Release 1 than can’t be covered in a single blog post. For more specifics on the complete list and details of all the new features in the release, be sure to read the Release Notes.
New to the release process? Learn more about it here.
Finally, be sure to request access to your Release Preview account when it becomes available. There, you’ll be able to see how the new features will work with your own data and get a jumpstart on maximizing the impact of NetSuite 2020 Release 1.
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