How The Food Manufacturing Industry Can Manage Their Records With Document Scanning?

The food manufacturing industry has to deal with a wide range of challenging processes to continue with their day-to-day routine processes. From the point of view of managing sales orders, supplier relationships and protecting consumer safety, accurate documentation is very important in the food manufacturing industry. Document management systems (DMS) can help increase the efficiency of operations. As the business grows and they start to document more and more systems and procedures, document management can become “out-of-control”. Data cleansing and standardization has become an important aspect in this regard. Many top companies in this sector utilize data cleansing services to make their data free of redundancy and duplicity. Technical documentation is an important aspect in this regard. Food manufacturers have to keep track of numerous details like container packaging related to canning, labelling, coding, and handling.

Significance of Documentation

Technical documentation needs to be comprehensive and reliable if the company is to benefit financially. It must include aspects like – specifications of components and products, operating guidelines with illustrations and examples, product data sheets, test methods, troubleshooting instructions and quality inspection manuals for raw material (before use) and finished product (before shipping). Documentation related to safety checks and other details must be well-detailed along with practical guidelines and illustrations.

Here discussed are some points on how a document management system can help increase operational efficiency in the food manufacturing industry –

• • Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) – As a food manufacturer, the company has to keep track of lot of details. For instance, it is important to know the container packaging requirements related to canning, labeling, coding and handling. Having the correct weight control procedures in place is important to determine the net weight of each product. Standard operating procedures make all the processes easier, including the management of documents inside of the company. The following areas in the food manufacturing industry require SOPs –
    • Good manufacturing practices
    • Traceability
    • Supplier approval
    • Storage
    • Rework
    • Residual chemical testing
    • Recall procedures
    • Raw material testing
    • Product sequencing
    • Product process design
    • Label review
    • Housekeeping
    • Hold and release

• • Quality Control and Compliance – One of the important aspects in the food manufacturing processes, quality control and compliance involves management of various documents from multiple locations for audit purposes. The type of quality control and compliance that a company has to ensure depends on the particular type of foods manufactured. Basically, it is the company’s job to keep the food safe for end consumers. To institute quality control processes, multiple documents from multiple locations have to be managed for audits. Therefore, it is necessary to access the data by authorized personnel. With a huge volume of documentation, the data or information must be easily searchable within the document management system during audits. Authorized personnel must be able to access the data without any hassles. Since the documentation volume is considerable, the data must be easily searchable as well. All this calls for efficient document management.

• • Sales Order Management – The food manufacturing process starts with sales order management. Depending on how many customers a company serves, sales order management can keep entire departments busy all day long. For instance, a lot of companies use fax or email to send orders back and forth. While both are technically direct, the information still has to be put into the central system. An efficient document management system can help eliminate the time and cost involved with fax and email. Most companies have an existing paper record inventory, and these documents also have to be integrated into the system. Using document scanning services, organizations can have their documents streamlined and converted into digital formats to be stored in their DMS. Right from the initial scanning (that includes conversion with OCR or optical character recognition software) that allows search facility within the documents, to indexing and post-production work, the document scanning company can be of great assistance. Sales order management usually requires approvals as well. With the use of a document management system, you can add changes and approvals from one location which can speed up the process of ordering significantly.

• • Supplier and Customer Relationships – Keeping all the documentation consistent and organized (for later points of reference) is important to manage supplier and customer relationships. A document management system can help store and approve paperwork quickly. This is particularly relevant when establishing new supplier and customer relationships. Handling suppliers and customers efficiently will increase the likelihood of repeat business for a company. When customers find that it is easy to order products from a company, more and more customers will be encouraged to buy from them. When suppliers find that it is easy to do business with a company, supplier relationships can also be strengthened. Maintaining good relationships will enable companies to avail special services such as an expedited shipment.

• Invoicing and Accounts Payable – Digitization and streamlining of invoices and accounts payable documents will help increase productivity and save time. Speeding up the workflow related to paying the suppliers and getting paid will enable the company to pay their suppliers sooner as well as provide cash discounts on invoices. Using document management properly can help a company notice a reduction in errors and higher customer satisfaction as well.

From a technical point of view, using a document management system adds another layer of traceability that ensures quality control and compliance within the food manufacturing processes. Relying on the services of a reputable document scanning company that also provides efficient data cleansing services will offer an easy way to store and retrieve all of the files from multiple locations quickly and efficiently. This in turn will help improve efficiency at every step of food manufacturing – right from ordering to invoicing to quality control and compliance all throughout the processes.