Food and beverage manufacturers need to take a fresh approach to how they do business. Why? Increasing consumer demand for greater product innovation and transparency, ever-increasing quality and compliance pressures, tighter profit margins, new channel opportunities, and a dynamic workforce are just some of the factors that are shifting market dynamics.

New Food Magazine hosted an Infor Webinar on how Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) can improve innovation.

During this webinar Keurig Dr Pepper provided a great customer case, where Bob Wimpfheimer told us how they needed a software solution that could help develop new products quickly, produce these products using the best possible formulas, and maintain full compliance with all regulatory requirements.

Additionally, the Webinar highlighted several areas where companies can find business evidence to justify their interest in PLM, here listed as questions:

In part one of this post we discussed the smartest ways to gain global visibility and respond to volatility in a food and beverage supply chain. And here in part two we will cover how to embrace the best technology. Addressing these key challenges can have a profound and positive impact on your entire supply chain—from procurement to manufacturing to delivery.

When you're looking at building a better foundation to address the challenges you may be facing within your overall organization, there's a number of solutions to consider. These aren't necessarily always the options that fall into what you’d expect to be a supply chain solution, but they all overlap within your overall supply chain and will help drive effectiveness and efficiency.

The first example is formula management. Many companies want to ascertain that it’s creating the right products for the right country as there may be limitations from a global perspective of where you can sell a product. Trying to manage this manually is challenging. Being able to respond to inquiries from customers and prospects around the globe requires quite a robust formula management solution.

In part one of this post we discussed the smartest ways to gain global visibility and respond to volatility in a food and beverage supply chain. And here in part two we will cover how to embrace the best technology. Addressing these key challenges can have a profound and positive impact on your entire supply chain—from procurement to manufacturing to delivery.

Embrace the best technology

When you're looking at building a better foundation to address the challenges you may be facing within your overall organization, there's a number of solutions to consider. These aren't necessarily always the options that fall into what you’d expect to be a supply chain solution, but they all overlap within your overall supply chain and will help drive effectiveness and efficiency.

The first example is formula management. Many companies want to ascertain that it’s creating the right products for the right country as there may be limitations from a global perspective of where you can sell a product. Trying to manage this manually is challenging. Being able to respond to inquiries from customers and prospects around the globe requires quite a robust formula management solution.

Food and beverage companies have long struggled with the unique requirements of shelf life management, complexities of batch scheduling, traceability, and many other factors. In addition, uncertainties around tariffs, sustainability initiatives, and growing regulations are some of a multitude of dynamics that will surely add even more complexity to the mix. Many of these issues and trends can have profound impact on your entire supply chain—from procurement to manufacturing to delivery.

In a recent Infor-sponsored webinar, Mike Edgett and Christine Barnhardt discussed a number of challenges as it relates to supply chain complexities in the food and beverage industry. In the webinar, we segmented the challenges into three buckets; gain global visibility, predict and respond to volatility, and embrace the best technology.

In part one of this blog post we’ll briefly go through the first two categories and part two will cover how to harness the finest technology. Click to watch the on-demand webinar for a deeper dive.

As robust and far-reaching as ERP solutions can be, it's simply not feasible to think that they can be all-encompassing, providing complete business functionality for every aspect of an organization. The simple truth is that all ERP solutions have gaps in specialized areas such as product lifecycle management (PLM). Successful companies know that it's best to close these gaps with focused, industry-specific solutions that address the unique aspects of their business.