Multigenerational Food & Beverage Company Moves To Hosted Solution With SAP Business One and Food One
Quick Facts
- Location: Miami, Florida
- Industry: Food & Beverage
- Products/Services: Specialty Food Products
- Website: https://morrisonmeat.com/
- Solutions: SAP Business One; Softengine FoodONE
Morrison Meat Packers was started in 1966 by Jose Rodriguez. He wanted to create a business producing quality products for the community of Miami, FL. The company was named after the processing plant where Jose worked when he first came to America. Today, Jose’s children, Claudio and Gilda, run the family business. The company has come far from its humble beginnings and grown into a business that serves a diverse population in Miami and the surrounding area. As third-generation meat producers, Morrison Meat Packers continues to pass the torch to Danny and Kevin, who have built a reputation for producing meat with the unique flavors of their Latin and Hispanic heritage. Ham and smoked sausages flavored with jalapeno and serrano peppers and a blend of spices and seasonings give their signature brand “El Toro” ham and “Roman Brand” Argentine and Colombian style Sausages their unique taste.
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WHY SAP BUSINESS ONE
One System Across Operations, Financials, Sales, Purchasing & More
Like most companies in operation for more than 50 years, Morrison Meat Packers was still using the outdated, manual method of processing orders and keeping track of inventory, so payment processing records were understandably out-of-date. The daily process included tracking the products ordered, processed, and shipped to the customer. Those numbers would be manually entered and calculated under the old program.
The company needed to update its systems to a more modern, technologically advanced system that could automate these processes and more. Their goal was to increase productivity by streamlining the manual processes that slowed things down. They also wanted a backup system in case of a manufacturing shutdown.
DAILY MANUAL UPKEEP
Removing Manual Spreadsheets
Morrison’s outdated day-to-day process included manual records of product inventory, order processing, and shipment. With orders coming in every day, Kevin knew two things 1) coordinating products to orders was taking more time than it should, and 2) it was time for an
optimized solution. Once they decided on the appropriate ERP system, they knew that connecting with the right partner would be crucial to their success. Morrison Meat came to Softengine after researching other ERP solutions. It had decided to study other ERP solutions and
decided that SAP Business One was the best solution since it required the least number of customizations.
As with all multi-generational companies, there are layers of custom software used to uphold the legacy system, and Morrison was no different.
In addition to seeking out a less time-consuming solution, their current ERP was no longer being supported. Kevin tells Softengine, “We always want support for our systems because if something goes wrong in terms of coding, there were limitations to what our internal team could do. So when they told us that system that we had was no longer going to have a support staff, that was the final straw.”
It can be very time-intensive if everything must be customized. Having something that is 75-85% ready to go out of the box is the best thing in the world for small to midsized businesses. It is the best of both worlds since you get all the features you need without delaying business operations with lengthy implementations. Everything was integrated and customized to suit their needs and preferences. It took less than two months to get it up and running and another month to work the kinks out, which was to be expected.
FULLY HOSTED SYSTEM PROMOTES REMOTE WORK
Softengine Cloud Provides Flexibility
Hosting with Softengine has been one of the best decisions when it comes to implementing SAP Business One. Previously, Morrison was on a host of systems, and they could only access them from the office. Now they access every step of their business from their laptops or
home computers.
“Instead of having to print sheets in order to look over our reports, we can log in from home. If a team member
goes on on vacation and we have a significant issue, they can log in and take a look at it and fix it from anywhere around the world.”
– Kevin Rodriguez, Owner, Morrison Meat Packers
When the time came to implement the change, Kevin chose Softengine for their industry-focused product FoodONE. This system already had the features Morrison needed for their food distribution business. They were attracted to SAP due to it’s out-of-the-box functionality that did not require much customization. This enabled their team to have minimal disruption when it came time to move off of FACTS. In addition to addressing all their needs as a food manufacturer this also allowed for minimal maintenance costs.
The implementation time was speedy. Within two months, they went live, and within another month or two, they worked out all the kinks. Now the systems run like clockwork. Bringing in FoodONE to do their accounting and orders and combining with the Matrix program for filing and scanning orders while having both systems communicate has been a dream come true. They could
incorporate some of our newer programs from a different software that was not combined in their previous program.
With SAP Business One fully implemented, the inventory is automatically added into the system and counted, and with their previous solution had to be done by hand. Under the new system, when an order is ready, paperwork for shipment is a thing of the past. Inventory is scanned with a barcode, weighed, and the boxes filled. SAP then communicates that the order is completed and the invoice is printed. Softengine’s solution FoodONE takes this one step further to calculate how much inventory is no longer available and adds it to the current count and can flag the system user when they are running low on any ingredient.
“We are so pleased with the new system,” pronounces Kevin, “this has simplified fulfilling orders for our loyal customers, and removed all cumbersome spreadsheets we used to have to wrestle with on a daily basis”
WORLD-CLASS IMPLEMENTATION SUPPORT
Softengineers Speak Their Language
As a 3rd generation small business owner, Morrison values personal relationships. So when they were assigned a project manager they found Softengine’s team was unmatched. As the implementation unfolded Softengine helped them discover how to use the system to address their needs and wants from a business solution perspective and translated it to their business. Each detail was explained, and all their questions were answered. Morrison is elated with SAP and the knowledgeable, experienced professional who worked with them.
“It’s nice to have everything working smoothly and to be able to see everything updating in real-time. This has been very helpful in accounting because it was a change for the better.” – Kevin Rodriguez, Owner, Morrison Meat Packers