Mamma Lucia produces lasagnes and fresh Italian ready meals under the brands Mamma Lucia, Rana and private label. 160 people are employed at the site in Nivelles. Products manufactured there are sold both on the domestic and foreign markets. One of Mamma Lucia’s Belgian customers includes Delhaize. They went out looking for a solution to simplify order administration and deliveries for this customer, amounting to ten pallets three times a week.
Time savings
Delhaize requires all suppliers using their Distribution Centre 2, to put products in identical cases and add an EAN code. This also applies to Mamma Lucia. “We were doing it by hand to start with”, says Lies Verhoest, a member of the Customer Service team at Mamma Lucia. “After the goods had been loaded onto the lorry we still had to fill in all the SSCC codes in the evening at the Delhaize site. That was often quite a rush, as the delivery still needed to be made that same night, or the next morning. As this job really took us ages we went looking for another solution. Delhaize told us about PHI DATA because they were sure to have just what we were looking for. And they were right!”
PHI DATA implemented IDFresh at the site in Nivelles, which allows digital messages to be transferred between the supplier and the customer. In this way the content is known, right down to crate level. At Mamma Lucia this was combined with a RFID gate solution, so that prepared orders only needed to pass through the gate to know exactly what they contained. The entire solution was linked to the accounting software used by Mamma Lucia.
How does IDFresh work?
To be specific, IDFresh operates as follows at Mamma Lucia: staff put the prepared order ready in crates with a unique RFID code. They scan one product per pallet and enter the lot, number and expiry date. When the order is complete and passes through the gate, Delhaize receives an electronic despatch advice message, which includes all the information in EDI, a standard that can be read by all computer systems. An invoice is sent automatically and a barcode label is printed, complying with the GS1-128 standard.
“This really saves us loads of time”, says Lies Verhoest. “We no longer need to manually fill in SSCC codes pallet by pallet online indicating how many cases there are per pallet and what they contain. All that’s required is for the pallets to pass through the gate. And, most importantly, we avoid making mistakes.” Mrs Verhoest is also delighted with her collaboration with PHI DATA. “If I need any help, be it on site or remotely, there is always someone available.”
