Bestfoods

As a global food company with annual sales of about $8.4 billion in 110 countries and household-name brands like Hellmann, Mazola, Skippy, Knorr and Entenmanns in its vast portfolio, New Jersey-based Bestfoods handles tens of thousands of shipments every month from hundreds of plants and warehouses around the world.

Each shipment that crosses international borders must be accompanied by a variety of shipping and government regulatory documents. Different countries can mean different documents.

The Challenge:
To implement a system that automatically knows which documents go with each shipment, generating the proper Documents on Demand without manual intervention, and doing it right the first time every time.

The Solution:
Output Management (Confirm)

The BPCS Connection: Bestfoods' first step in addressing the need for an efficient method of producing international trade documents was to identify a software solution offering seamless integration with its enterprise application, SSA's (now SSAGlobal) BPCS Client/Server Version 6.

SSA recommended Output Management (Confirm). Bestfoods turned to Output Management for a pilot project involving Bestfoods Benelux B.V.

Bestfoods' Netherlands operation produces nearly 1,000 trade documents from three different offices every month. Various Bestfoods products are shipped from the Netherlands to the company's affiliates in Germany and Scandinavia. The Conimex brand of Indonesian spices and sauces is dispatched to customers around the globe. Now Output Management (Confirm) would be put to the crucial test.

Anytime, Anywhere:
In June 1998, after an implementation process during which Output Management (Confirm)'s extensive patented Rules-based capabilities were used to tailor 17 different documents to Bestfoods' needs, the system went live. It has been generating all the necessary documents ever since.

The system automatically produces Single Administration Document (SAD) customs forms, CMR consignment notes, EUR1 certificates, L-form agriculture refunds, certificates of origin, shipping instructions, invoices and other documents at the precise time and location required by Bestfoods.

Based on the Rules entered into the system, the software knows whether a given set of documents should be printed at the main Netherlands office in Hilversum or in either of the two outlying offices that are connected over a wide area network via TCP/IP. It also knows which documents to print for which orders, in what language, and whether they should be printed when the order is confirmed, the goods are boarding, or at other critical junctures.

For all but a few forms that must be pre-printed to satisfy government requirements, documents are produced directly from templates stored in the database. This eliminates the expense and space of stocking pre-printed forms. And because the data is pulled directly from BPCS, there is minimal chance of error.

The Bottom Line:
"If we had to produce these documents manually, it would take more time, increase the risk of errors, and force us to put an extra burden on our picking or shipping personnel," said Roelof van Kooi, Project Manager for Bestfoods.

"With Output Management (Confirm), we have one integral system that requires no human intervention, and it offers us the ability to modify the rules or the format of any document or report," van Kooi said. "This is precisely the kind of solution we need."

With the successful implementation of Output Management (Confirm), Bestfoods' Netherlands operation is now investigating the possibility of using the Output Management software to produce picking slips, packing lists and similar enterprise documents. A technical team located in the United Kingdom is also considering expanding the Output Management solution to other Bestfoods locations.

With operations throughout North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, that could mean that Bestfoods eventually will produce hundreds of thousands of documents with Output Management (Confirm) globally.