Part 1: The Adoption of Technology in Food & Beverage

In today's rapidly evolving food and beverage industry, adopting technology is not just a choice but a necessity for businesses aiming to stay competitive and efficient. From AI and machine learning to enterprise automation and IoT, technological advancements are reshaping how companies operate, engage with customers, and manage their supply chains.

The Role of Technology in Business Transformation

Leading food & beverage sector businesses embrace a digital-first approach to drive growth and streamline operations. This includes leveraging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), generative AI, enterprise automation, IoT (Internet of Things), and Industry 4.0 solutions to enhance productivity, optimize processes, and deliver superior customer experiences.

Partner Spotlight: Info's OS Technology Platform

Our partner, Infor, with its innovative OS technology platform, is at the forefront of this technological revolution. Info has been instrumental in helping food & beverage businesses harness the power of cutting-edge technologies to unlock new opportunities and overcome operational challenges.

How Info is Empowering Businesses

Infor's OS technology platform offers tailored solutions designed to meet the specific needs of food and beverage companies. By leveraging AI and machine learning, Info enables businesses to analyze vast amounts of data in real time, gaining actionable insights to optimize production, predict demand, and enhance supply chain efficiency.

By streamlining and enhancing product quality assurance processes and refining recipe management capabilities, this solution simplifies and centralizes the intricate operations inherent in process manufacturing, ensuring consistent excellence in product quality, compliance, and efficiency across the production lifecycle.

Philadelphia, PA – February 19, 2024 -- Independent Computer Consulting Group, Inc. (“ICCG”) is pleased to announce the addition of Infor PLM for Process (Optiva), a best-in-class PLM solution from Infor to help process manufacturers up their game for new product introductions adhere to required regulatory compliance and maintain highest standards of quality and safety for their consumer-grade products. This best-of-breed PLM solution enables new products to be developed quickly, using the best possible formula, all while maintaining full compliance with all regulatory requirements.

Maximizing the value of R&D

Infor PLM for Process (Optiva®) is specifically designed for food, beverage, chemicals, and life science manufacturers and provides a unified product view of data and processes across organizations. It helps manufacturers easily achieve regulatory and labeling compliance—whether it’s meeting reporting requirements, complying with labeling laws, or supplying ingredient details.

Infor Optiva PLM streamlines processes for product development, material selection, formulation, and new product introductions. The solution is helping process manufacturers worldwide:

• Deliver fast innovation. Companies using Infor PLM for Process can reduce the time to develop new products 50% or more by simplifying development processes, improving supply chain collaboration, and integrating product lifecycle management with enterprise resource planning (ERP) and other core processes.
• Optimize formulas. Infor PLM for Process delivers industry-leading capability for analyzing material cost, inventory, and manufacturing capacity to help process companies select the best formula for a given product. By optimizing product formulas, process companies can significantly reduce material costs and manufacture more efficiently.
• Ensure 100% labeling compliance. Complying with label content requirements is critical to overall success for process companies. Infor PLM for Process provides the capabilities food and beverage, home and personal care, pharmaceutical, and nutraceutical companies need to design and produce labels that consistently meet government regulations.
  
  

By Christine Dominski, ICCG Senior Business Consultant

Do you find yourself searching for Information through multiple Excel files? How about Teams or SharePoint sites? Do you struggle with managing approvals or reviews?

Maybe it is time for a Product Life Cycle Management System (PLM).

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is the process by which Research and Development innovate new products and manage quality throughout the product lifecycle to ensure the highest level of consumer satisfaction and shareholder value.

PLM systems wrap around Business Strategies and Product Portfolios to help coordinate information and collaboration across an organization. The process of generating product ideas, all the way to product retirement, can be managed in a PLM system. Manage Suppliers, Items (ingredients), Formulas (recipes), Label and Project information, all in one place. Record approvals at every step of the way to provide audit trails.

Product Lifecycle Management affords the peace of mind that all data is managed and reported as required by your organization. A PLM system allows you to control User access to the information as needed for your business success. Integration with ERP systems and a data lake are available. Use the data lake to feed E-Commerce initiates or other internal systems used for reporting.

By Christine Dominski, ICCG Senior Business Consultant

Have you ever wondered if a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system is right for your business? Is the Business Value unclear? No matter the size of your business, a Product Lifecycle Management system can provide insights and discipline to a Company's process. Let’s provide clarity on the business value.

Standardize Business Processes – By understanding what makes your business tick, you can standardize the processes in a system to maximize efficiency. Once you maximize efficiency, you can realize a quicker time to market with new approval processes tailored to your needs.