VKS for Food & Beverage

Reduce Supply Chain Waste

With an increase in the desire from consumers for sustainability and eco-friendliness, waste reduction is now the dominating challenge for manufacturers and the one that influences all subsequent decisions. To this day, one of the best ways to achieve Lean Manufacturing continues to be through the standardization of work.

A common situation across shop floors globally is that only certain employees within the organization possess key knowledge. If this knowledge has ever been recorded on paper, then documentation of it is either stored away in a cabinet somewhere or has long since been outdated.

By using the VKS software to digitally document the invaluable knowledge of your senior operators, you can rest assured that production is always maintained at optimal levels. Now more than ever, it is important to standardize work at each level of production with digital work instructions, which also offer the fundamental advantage of decreasing overproduction, reducing defects, and maximizing human potential.

Once tribal knowledge is documented in digital format, the training of new employees is then streamlined through the use of digital work instructions. Instead of spending countless hours training new employees, senior operators are now able to spend time on other valuable tasks and can quickly review training progress through interactive questionnaires.

Keep Up with Regulatory Changes

Keeping up with rapidly changing consumer trends is a major challenge within both food and beverage as well as consumer goods industries. The process of creating a new product from start to finish is time-consuming and the reality is that by the time it’s done, changing consumer trends or regulations may throw a wrench into the plans

But with digital work instruction software, the setbacks are minimal compared to those that result from still using paper-printed guides. Using templates, managers can quickly make changes to hundreds of Guidebooks at the same time, while broadcasting an alert to all affected operators that this change has been made. These alerts can be created for any situation, whether to remind shop floor operators to wash their hands frequently or remember to maintain a socially-safe distance from each other.

Any action performed within the VKS work instruction software is also recorded. A history of changes applied to a Guidebook is recoverable through Version Control, allowing users to review previous versions and review which users applied these changes, ensuring traceability.

Improve Product Traceability & Transparency

The ability to track and trace the life of a product from raw material to finished goods is one of the most important aspects within manufacturing – it’s also one of the biggest challenges. Within the food and beverage industry, the global supply chain is of heightened importance as a result of changing regulations, the digital revolution, and world events such as the pandemic.

Recording data at every step of the way is crucial towards ensuring transparency across the entire food supply chain. While standard operating procedures (SOPs) have always been the norm, keeping up with technology through the digitization of work instructions offers an unparalleled advantage.

Once any data is entered into the VKS software, it can then be retrieved through the search function and aggregated within a report. Operators can enter data in two ways: either by scanning a barcode or by completing a Smart Form to enter specific information such as product measurements, temperature readings, etc.

By analyzing the collected data, you can then detect opportunities to improve quality, reduce recalls, correct inventory shortages, and surpass the competition.