Processing
Making Decisions That Meta:
New Benchmarking Tool Aids Performance
Assessment and Resource Allocation
By providing a simple
means of consolidating
KPI data across an
organisation and ultimately
comparing the results
with the industry at
large, Meta offers
manufacturers a unique
benchmarking tool to
improve their operating
practices and determine
plant investment priorities.
Meta is a hosted application that
allows managers to easily see, present
and analyse KPI data from their plants
as well as compare their performance
with the industry average.
30 FOOD & BEVERAGE ASIA FEBRUARY/MARCH 2007
S
IMPLOT Australia is one of the country’s top ten food and beverage
companies, manufacturing and selling a range of frozen, canned and
baked products. The company is a market leader in eight categories and
among Australia’s top ten businesses in its sector. Simplot Australia is also
responsible for exporting its goods to New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and
Southeast Asia.
Apart from Simplot’s products that are distributed through an extensive
network of retailers (supermarkets, convenience stores) and food service outlets
(restaurants, cafes and caterers); the company is also one of the world’s leading
producers and suppliers of frozen French Fries to the fast food industry. Simplot
Australia is the proud owner of a number of Australia’s icon brands in the
grocery industry. Edgell, Birds-Eye, Leggos, and most recently John West make
up some these product names.
Simplot Australia operates in an environment of continuous improvement
across its nationwide network of plants. Key performance indicators (KPIs)
covering areas such as safety, environment, productivity and quality as well as
overarching corporate processes are constantly monitored and logged into
spreadsheets for data analysis.
When Simplot sought to implement a way to quickly obtain, view and
tabulate plant and corporate KPIs from multiple sites, the company found that
its existing software could not provide the required accessibility and visibility.
Generating reports and charts using the existing system was time consuming
and managers could not easily review KPIs as charts and reports were not
available in synchronised formats. This hindered the task of deciding how to
best allocate resources and capital across multiple sites.
The search for a solution brought Simplot Australia to Citect, a Sydney-
based developer of industrial automation and real-time intelligence systems.
Citect was already a supplier of their
SCADA software to Simplot, and one facet
of Simplot’s wish list was to add an overall
performance tracking solution that could
utilise the KPI tracking and benchmarking
capability of its plant(s) SCADA and
Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES).
Data on your dashboard
According to Kurt Lovell, Citect’s
Global Director for Meta, Simplot wanted
a system that could present “how their
plants are performing, and how they were
performing against other parties in the
industry.” Responding to this requirement,
Citect conceived Meta, a hosted application
that will compile KPI data from Simplot,
 Processing

“present it in a value-added way, and allow comparison in the number of hours spent reporting,” noted Mr Lovell
with others in the industry so that we can ultimately show of Simplot’s experience with Meta, “Now, reporting is
food and beverage manufacturers whether their trends in becoming a painless process for them. The results are
quality or safety are above or below the industry average.” instantly available to the corporate managers – there’s no
Using visual dashboards and automated reporting tools, delay.”
Meta eliminates the effort needed to manually create Mr Lovell believes that the benchmarking service is
reports and charts. The application is hosted offsite by “adding value” for Simplot Australia and anticipates it is
Citect, so minimal IT support is required. likely to be deployed across more Simplot plants.
As Mr Lovell put it, older, non-unified tools such as
spreadsheets rely on the individual idiosyncrasies of each Tool for intelligent decisions
manager, thus producing “many versions of the same Because Meta provides a wide spectrum of KPI data
story.” With Meta, it is now possible to have just “one for analysis, small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) stand
version of the truth” and easy for “different systems and to gain from the ability to benchmark against the best in
individuals in different locations to put in their KPIs and the business. “Many SMEs can’t afford traditional business
share it with the rest of the business.” intelligence tools, because they are very expensive to
Working closely with Simplot Australia, Citect is deploy and maintain,” said Mr Lovell. “Meta provides a
developing a Meta suite that tracks broad categories of level of benchmarking and reporting that they couldn’t
KPI including: safety, quality, production and OEE. Each afford before, so now you can find out how you compare
category includes a number specific KPIs such as lost time against everyone else in your segment and try to beat that
incidents, complaints per million and equipment performance.”
availability. Each corporate and plant stakeholder has at Lessons learnt could yield wiser decisions in plant
his or her disposal personalised dashboards to monitor investment and management, according to Scott Druery,
performance measure- Managing Director (SEA)
ments and generate KPI for Citect’s regional
reports, with further headquarters in Singapore.
graphical tools such as Using Meta, a company
dials, graphs and webcams. might determine that
“automation is not neces-
Savings from sarily where they should
simplicity spend their money,” he
Mr Lovell stressed that remarked. “Perhaps they
ease of use and customi- should be looking at the
sability are integral to process in the light of other
Meta. “It’s simple for the business improvements
user,” he said, “If you know like customer satisfaction
how to use a mouse, you Food exporters would benefit from Meta’s ability to help or timely delivery.”
can build a system. As long analyse the impact of a missed KPI on the business, says Now a part of the
Scott Druery, Managing Director (SEA) for Citect. On the
as the user knows what she left is Kurt Lovell, Citect’s Global Director for Meta. Schneider Electric group,
wants to measure, Meta can Citect’s roots are in fact in
measure it.” Citect claims that typical users need only a the food industry, with dairy plants being some of the
45 minute online training session to learn the system. company’s first clients. Benchmarking will be increasingly
“Because we are a hosted service, we have to make vital to food manufacturers in Asia, according to Mr
sure that we meet the needs of an ever-growing installed Druery. Food processors targeting demanding export
base,” said Mr Lovell, pointing out that organisations can markets would require fast and reliable data on relevant
add new KPIs or include new users into the system without processes to ensure that the risk of problems such as
facing any problems of volume or scalability. With all the product recall and poor supplier standards are minimised.
back architecture under Citect’s control, users can “remain “And that’s where a product like Meta comes in to help
focused on the KPIs” and concentrate on “using Meta as a analyse and measure the impact of a missed KPI on the
means to help businesses improve their performance, to overall business,” concludes Mr Druery. “It’s very
increase their top level and save money on the bottom line.” important for any business to be able to get that data
A parallel gain comes from the savings in time that quickly.”
managers previously expended in processing and
presenting KPI data. There’s been a significant reduction Enquiry No: 021

FOOD & BEVERAGE ASIA FEBRUARY/MARCH 2007 31