FOOD AND BEVERAGE INDUSTRY -
Founded in 1944, Olde Thompson is the largest dedicated manufacturer and supplier of private label and branded superior spices in North America. As a global strategic spice partner, Olde Thompson offers a complete range of spice solutions, including spice racks, pepper mills and saltshakers, spice grinders, gourmet rubs, and accessories. It delivers a total category solution of spice offerings to club and grocery retailers.
The Challenge
Olde Thompson started working with MFGx in 2017 as an early adopter of the Fuuz applications platform. The company replaced its legacy ERP and implemented a new Plex ERP solution. Management felt they had lost some of the customizations they were accustomed to with their legacy solution. They also identified several functional gaps. The Plex implementation team recommended MFGx and its Fuuz applications platform to fill those gaps.
First, Olde Thompson needed a parcel shipping integration for its hundreds of daily shipments. They also needed an integration solution for their plant equipment, including weigh scales and handheld scanners.
Additionally, the team at Olde Thompson decided that the existing ERP interface with the shop floor wasn’t intuitive and didn’t meet their needs or standards.
“MFGx implemented its Fuuz solution to meet our exact needs — we didn’t need to adjust our processes to fit the software, the software adjusted to fit our processes instead.”
The Solution
The Fuuz applications platform delivers a multi-tenant cloud solution that meets Olde Thompson’s specific needs in several areas.
First, the Fuuz Platform parcel shipping solution integrates with various shipping carriers to automate the creation of shipping labels. By augmenting the shipping process in Plex, Fuuz connects and integrates Olde Thompson’s UPS WorldShip and FedEx accounts with its ERP. The platform bridges the gap with its out-of-the-box UPS and FedEx integration.
“Users can focus on their processes rather than worrying about inaccurate information getting applied to the packages,” commented Merchant. “The other solutions we evaluated were cost prohibitive.”
Next, the Fuuz Platform provides custom app capability to enhance shop floor user interfaces with handheld devices that enable productivity. The Fuuz team built custom user interfaces using APIs that integrate with Plex ERP. The Olde Thompson team was impressed by how quickly MFGx built the UIs, and how easy they are to use and maintain. The shop floor workers now use handheld mobile devices for improved productivity.
As the IT Director, it’s important that I have the tools to address the needs of our customers and our users quickly. This is precisely what we get with Fuuz; we get solutions. No matter what the need is, the platform provides the tools we need, and the team behind it delivers on everything they say.”
The Result
From an MES/IIoT perspective, Olde Thompson uses the Fuuz Platform to automate shop floor data collection. The company now has more intuitive interfaces that are device agnostic, which gives them unparalleled flexibility as they expand their internal capabilities. The company also uses Fuuz to create native API integrations with third-party vendors, which streamline their internal processes, reduce errors and lower overhead.
“Not only were the discussions with the MFGx team easy and fluid. It was also clear that they really knew what they were doing. The Fuuz applications platform is extremely impressive — we left the discussions knowing that this was the ideal solution for us,” explained Merchant.
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