In the food industry, it is very difficult to document the manufacturing process. It is easy to collect traceability information concerning the input and output of a manufacturing company and in a lot of cases this is already done, but documentation of the manufacturing process is very difficult and not really available in a lot of companies. Therefore, fab4minds have developed a flexible standard which can also include manufacturing traceability information. Companies can use, for example, the FoodResourceManager system to automatically collect traceability data during their production process to achieve this standard.
To have an overview of traceability data, especially for statistics, it is important to develop a way of transferring traceability information very easily. Every food processing company is required by law to collect information on the origin and destination of their traded or produced products. If it is possible to add further criteria to this law, initially only for large organizations, in such a way that they have to provide this information in a specific electronic way (standard) – on the internet, for example – it will be possible to get a lot of very useful statistical information.
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All systems have to be administered over a central station that works with EAN codes, and develops and supports the standard. Therefore, it is possible to find, with the help of keys to all traceability and quality saving processes, specific data for any product. User management is also a very big challenge in this context. A possible solution would be to delegate user management to the individual member systems in order to decrease complexity.
Data exchange should be made in XML format so as to be as platform-independent as possible on the IT side. fab4minds uses every available web service worldwide for data exchange which is described by WSDL (Web Service Description Language) files. Every node in such a tree as it is shown in the figure above can communicate over a specific URL with another partner who is, for example, in the role of a supplier. It is necessary to have a central system, for example a UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration) directory, to find the traceability system of specific partners. Of course, initially it would be possible to publish the web service URLs of system members on their webpage, such as the address of the company.
Today, fab4minds is working on logical systems that calculate the probability of the origin or destination of product parts that are not documented in the system. If there are only some gaps in the supply chain, it may be possible to calculate the values of these gaps as a result of additional traceability data.
4 Results
fab4minds have developed not only software solutions, but a whole range of other solutions as well. Usage of such systems describes a whole business process, detailing how trading and manufacturing can be done on a high quality and traceable level. Every system partner has his own portal with specific features and job lists, such as its workflow systems. There is a large web-based data analysis and reporting system to obtain all the stored information from every part of the world within seconds. In the near future the three
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main systems explained in the following section will become certified as the first secure traceability system by the certification company SGS in Europe.
4.1 BioStockManager® (BSM)
fab4minds put their system “BioStockManager®”, which is now known across European markets, into production in the year 2000. In this first step, about 30 000 tons of Austrian grain were handled, documented and checked using this system. Two years later, BioStockManager® expanded to about 30 members all over Austria. One result of using BSM was that members were able to expand without increasing their staff numbers. Thus the second idea of reducing the administrative load in the daily business by automated data collection and documentation was realized. Lastly, harvest over 130 000 tons are traded over this system with over 100 partners and over 2 500 producers in Austria, Germany, Italy and Switzerland.
BioStockManager is a fully web-based Traceability-ERP solution which is based on data collection in real- time. It can handle many subsidiaries (clients) of one main system in order to get an overview of transactions in a large area. Every single transaction, from harvesting and cleaning, to manufacturing and transport, is documented on site. BSM has interfaces to weighbridges and quality testing instruments. Combined with necessary documents for transaction confirmation and on a traceability data based accounting system, it is guaranteed to realize real-time documentation. It is also possible to use chip cards for partners, EAN or Barcodes for lot and product identification. BSM uses the standardized open interface to ACM to perform real-time checks based on areas and the average harvest per product and hectare of producer deliveries. In addition, certification data is checked in real-time with the help of ACM.
Using the documented supply chain described means that it is possible to extract statistics and reports for all transactions. If you are interested in the details of some “hotspots”, you can do a so-called “drilldown” to get more detailed information (see Online Analytical Processing, OLAP). During the production and trading process, a lot of data will be generated and this causes a flood of information that can only be handled by analysis and reporting systems.
This year the first “real” traceability web portal was launched with a customer of BSM traded products (see www.ja-natuerlich.at.) Here it is possible to enter lot numbers and see the farmers who have produced your purchased products. The revolutionary aspect of this BSM-provided web portal is that the product supply-chain stretches over 20 steps and over four partners in one production chain and is not dependent on the structure of the supply chain. It is very flexible and scalable in order to allow it to handle nearly every possible production chain.
A traceability search engine is now available and fab4minds will develop new portals with graphical product flow diagrams, links to available laboratory reports and farmer-based data. This will be launched shortly before the 2004 harvest on www.biostockmanager.at. BioStockManager also have many interfaces to third party systems which use the collected information for third party data processing or statistical systems.
Every year fab4minds tries to expand their systems and standards to include new product categories and to work on a global EAN based directory as explained in this document.
In the process of the development of BSM, fab4minds found that open standards could be the basis of an electronic “traceability standard” for the whole European Union. Of course, there is a lot of work to be done in order to combine all the interests and requirements of the European countries but this work can be a very solid and approved foundation for such a future traceability standard.
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FRM is a software solution developed by fab4minds, based on the “know-how” collected during the development of the system BioStockManager®. In contrast to the specialized raw material handling system BSM, FoodResourceManager specifically caters to the needs of manufacturing companies. This system is a full ERP IT solution for food manufacturing firms which allows them to document the required traceability information automatically. FRM fulfils the traceability standard as developed by fab4minds, and is able to communicate with any other systems working on the basis of this standard such as BioStockManager®. Also, interfaces to ACM are available for FRM.
4.3 AgrarCertificationManager (ACM)
The aim for ACM was to provide a central database for all certification and laboratory check information with open interfaces and easy user management. To realize this vision the following three sub-systems were developed.
4.4 CERTib
fab4minds found it would be necessary to develop a central certification database in order to realize the idea of real-time checks of products along the supply chain. Therefore a central certification database called CERTib (Certification Information Base) was developed. CERTib offers open web service-based interfaces for certification bodies to transfer certification data into and out of this system. These interfaces were developed with all the major Austrian certification bodies over a one year period.
4.5 CERTc(2)
For all inspection companies unable to provide an IT interface to the CERTib system, fab4minds have developed very low cost software for certification companies, which is compatible with CERTib. Certification data collection along the whole supply chain is now possible. The three main parts of CERTc are data collection, inspection and certification. Printing and electronic archiving of certificates is also possible in terms of communicating over many interfaces which will be one of the most important challenges of certification companies in the future. The idea was to provide a very flexible system that would be usable by nearly all certification authorities. CERTc can import available certification data rapidly and is easy to set up, so it can be used especially well by small certification companies. CERTc is, like all fab4mids products, a very open system that can be connected to almost every interface because it is based, as BSM and FRM are, on the most modern Java web technology J2EE.
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4.6 CERTlab
It is not only important to store certification data in ACM; the quality analysis of products associated with a supply chain also has to be fully documented. There are two main reasons for collecting product quality analysis data in such a system. First, it is an important part of IT-based quality assurance. For example, if products are contaminated, it is possible to lock the supply chain in real-time. Secondly, it can reduce the cost of repeated laboratory analysis. It is also possible to calculate the probabilities for which step in the supply chain is most efficient for laboratory analysis.
Furthermore, supply chain reports can use the data of CERTlab to increase the image of high quality products by integrating quality check information. Moreover, it is interesting to get statistics from laboratory analysis of suppliers in order to find out which products are most likely to be safe and organic. During the last five years, while working on the ideas detailed above, fab4minds have collected much “know-how” to deal with these problems. Developing standards in traceability and certification data is one of the main tasks of fab4minds today. In Austria, the experience of working on such systems has made it possible to realize all the ideas mentioned above, in over 90% (130 000 tons) of the grain market.