Keep It Simple: New Software Tool Cuts through Data Clutter
As companies are hit with a massive amount of information as a result of new technology, proper management of data intelligence can be difficult. The key is to be able to translate the data into useable information to drive improvements in processes, products and business operations. A new tool aims to do just that—help companies boost operational margins using real-time data intelligence, from supplier performance to trends to safety and quality processes, across an organization.
Launched earlier this week, SafetyChain Analytics can also help companies spot problems before they balloon into larger issues that affect product quality. Barry Maxon, CEO of SafetyChain, explains why the company developed the tool and how it can help food companies save money by being more efficient.
Food Safety Tech: What was the impetus behind developing this tool?
Barry Maxon: The food and beverage industry historically is a business that has tight operating margins. At the same time, companies spend a tremendous amount of money every year collecting compliance data. If you walk through any food and beverage facility, you’ll see people writing down data on paper and putting it in filing cabinets or a spreadsheet. There’s already a tremendous amount of data being collected. We wanted to help companies go beyond collecting compliance data to satisfy their records for their auditors; we wanted to harness that data so they can begin to use it to drive operational excellence. That’s what’s going to make the difference in moving the needle on a company’s bottom line and their operating margins—the ability to leverage all the data they’re collecting to gain insights into how their business is operating and use it to improve their processes, products and operations.
FST: How does it address challenges that food businesses experience? How does it streamline their workflow?
Maxon: Companies are being squeezed from all directions—they need to do more with less, perform at the speed of business today, and remain up to date with all the different compliance standards—be it regulatory, industry standards from GFSI, and even down to customer specific compliance level. There’s a tremendous amount of demand being put on food companies. Yet at the same time, all of these demands typically require greater cost, and they’re being challenged to do more with less and achieve greater economy with their businesses to actually improve their bottom line. It’s a double whammy—improve your bottom while also having greater demand placed on your business—competitively, and from a regulatory and compliance perspective.
There are a lot of processes that have been fundamentally manual in the past, on paper and spreadsheets and in filing cabinets. We’ve talked to companies that say they have people spending hours a day just billing out paperwork and putting numbers into spreadsheets. And we have multi-billion-dollar industries still running on spreadsheets. As nice as a spreadsheet is, it’s a 40-year old software technology that came out in 70s. We’re trying to use new and innovative tools so companies can perform in this new era of technology and use it to benefit their business in multiple ways.
Food Safety Tech: Who are the main product users?
Maxon: Your user base is anyone in the organization who touches safety, quality or compliance from an operational standpoint.
Often the front-end users are collecting and reviewing the sets of data. One of the key elements of the tool is to deliver the right data to the right user in real time. In the past, one of biggest challenges for food companies is that they may run for many hours before realizing they are out of compliance. The idea is to give front-line users have an immediate access to data that prompts them when they’re trending into a direction where they need to take preventive action.
At the same time, managers and executives have access to the tool so they can mine the data, run the reports, and see process control charts.
FST: Are there different security controls for this software?
Maxon: Absolutely. You can organize it so users only see what matters to them. That’s really the key to keeping it simple. Data can very quickly become overwhelming. We’re trying to deliver prebuilt dashboards and reports, and organize the data to make it intuitive. We’re also trying to leverage data on an exception-based management principle. It used to be, in more manual paper-based processes, that a supervisor had to review every single record and sign off on it. Here, with automation in software, everything that passes compliance goes through the system; you don’t need to look at it—it will immediately highlight where you have exceptions in your process so you can quickly take corrective action and make sure everything is resolved before it gets further downstream.
Continue to page 2 below.
FST: What are the cost savings with using this tool?
Maxon: There are resource savings, which is a soft dollar cost. Many times companies hire people with certain qualifications and background, and they wind up spending all their time filling out paperwork and putting numbers into a spreadsheet. This tool allows you to get rid of the mundane tactical side and allow your people to be free to focus on what matters most. Technology is about making your human resource more efficient, and this tool makes you more efficient.
On the hard dollar side of things (this is where we’re excited about analytics you can reduce waste and rework. If you can catch a problem early enough or prevent a problem from happening, you’ve eliminated a tremendous amount of rework; you can reduce customer complaints because you have a better adherence to your quality standards. You can improve your competitive stance, because you have data that shows how your quality operations work in real time. It’s helpful walking the plant floor to show the real time analytics on a large monitor—[users] can monitor the quality of their operations in real time as opposed to after the fact.
FST: What is the product differentiator?
Maxon: One is the ability to tie together real-time data collection through a mobile device or specific data equipment integration in a real time sense. It’s also the real-time validation and verification of quality and compliance data. Then it’s part of seeing that compliance data into an operational view. Most software companies in this space are focused on compliance because you have to do it, and it matters to the integrity of your business. But it doesn’t make you money. We’re trying to go beyond compliance data and allow someone to manage compliance data to drive operational excellence. The ability to have instant and real-time access to powerful analytical tools allows you to transform quality into a bottom line contribution as opposed to an overhead. It’s the combination of those main points—collection of data, validation of compliance around specific programs and harness compliance to drive in.
The most important thing to keep in mind is that data and analytics can really transform the business. It’s specific to each customer. One of the things we pride ourselves on is that it’s more than just software; it’s also service and how we partner with our clients so they can leverage the tool and get benefit out of it. We help our customers cut through the clutter and keep it simple.