Frozen food distributor Ardo Increases Customer Satisfaction With Iptor

Ardo, a family-owned producer, packager and distributor of frozen vegetables, fruit, pasta and rice based in Ardooie, Belgium, merged with Dujardin Foods Group in 2014. With 20 production, packing and distribution units in eight European countries, Ardo employs more than 3,800 people. The company handles 805,000 tons of food worldwide, with an estimated consolidated turnover of €815 million.

As a result of the expansion, Ardo needed an integrated solution for their cold store refrigeration system. Logistical flows were not fully automated and material flows between product, semi-finished inventory and packaging stages were often long and complex, involving error- prone manual labor. In addition, a solution would need to hold up under high volume traffic. Tight schedules would need to be maintained throughout, especially during peak seasons, when service levels were at their most tenuous.

Iptor was selected based on its proven track record, acceptable functional fit and reasonable price. Iptor’s solution would be integrated with Ardo’s ERP system, aka “IDAS,” as well as the Savoye warehouse control system, Datapolis SCADA system, Transwide transportation planning and communication software, and Easyform document management system to ensure a cohesive, efficient operation.

As the project unfolded, specialized functional requirements were exposed, including specific schedulers for box picking and label requirements, among others. The Iptor team customized solutions to accommodate these special cases and support seamless, end-to-end performance.

Peter Schotte, Ardo’s lead IT analyst on the project, said “Iptor’s solution increased our efficiency, decreased our errors and reduced our rate of damaged goods significantly. They made the entire implementation process easy on us, leading to a marked improvement in overall operational costs and improved customer service levels.”

To read more about Iptor and the Ardo case study, visit Iptor's Customer News page on their website.

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Iptor Named to Food Logistics’ Top Software and Technology Providers List

Food Logistics, a publication dedicated to covering the global food supply chain, has named Iptor Supply Chain Systems to its 2016 FL100+ Top Software and Technology Providers list. Iptor, formerly International Business Systems (IBS), provides supply chain management, planning and logistics software and services.

The FL100+ Top Software and Technology Providers list serves as a resource guide of software and technology providers whose products and services are critical for companies in the global food and beverage supply chain.

Iptor’s expertise as a distribution software and services provider to the food and beverage industry is proven among distributors, wholesalers and 3PLs across a number of micro-verticals, including Ardo, SKANLOG, Smeding, Everfresh/Total Produce and many others. These customers use Iptor solutions to achieve added control and flexibility, comply with legal and regulatory demands, automate processes and overcome complexity to strengthen their competitive stance.

“The software and technology sector continues to generate new and exciting opportunities for growers, food manufacturers, grocery retailers and the many logistics providers that support them,” notes Lara L. Sowinski, editorial director at Food Logistics. “Today’s cloud-based solutions and mobile connectivity are helping create tools that are more flexible, affordable and responsive, making software and technology even more valuable to those in the global food supply chain.”

Companies on this year’s 2016 FL100+ Top Software and Technology Providers list will be profiled in the November/December 2016 issue of Food Logistics, as well as online at www.foodlogistics.com.

To learn more, visit Iptor's Newsroom.

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Rapid Growth Drives Reliable Parts to Upgrade to Iptor

When Reliable Parts of Tukwila, Washington acquired Appliance Parts Depot (APD) of Dallas, Texas in July of 2015, the first major expansion of a new era had begun. As a distributor of appliance and BBQ parts and accessories, Reliable Parts had been operating 30 locations and 3 distribution centers in the U.S., along with 30 locations and 4 distribution centers in Canada. The APD acquisition pushed their number of total U.S. locations to 45, and the new owners were now faced with merging their acquired ERP system into the legacy system Reliable Parts had been using to anchor their business since 1999.

In order to ensure smooth integration of future acquisitions and manage the growing transaction volume that would undoubtedly come with continued expansion, it was time for a major system refresh. After reviewing several products, Reliable elected to upgrade their existing Iptor system to the latest version, partly because the new release proved superior, but also because the overall cost of the upgrade would be considerably less.

The onboarding process was projected to take about nine months. Key tasks during this phase included converting APD’s customer and historical data to the Iptor platform, merging the websites to share information and training APD’s personnel on Reliable’s existing version of the system. Reliable added two key modules to their system, these included PlannerView, a powerful, adaptable, PC- based, graphical planning and information management tool that provides real- time supply chain visibility, and Integrator, a powerful tool to manage systems integration and data management, replication and synchronization. The move to include these modules immediately shortened Reliable’s overall learning curve once the new system was launched.

Says Lowell Millard, Reliable's CTO, “Iptor represents a tremendous upside for us, as we move into new territories. The scalability of the solution is exactly what we need long-term, and the ability to use the system out-of-the-box, without paying programmers to reinvent our solution, gives us excellent flexibility in pursuing new business.”

To learn more, visit the Iptor Newsroom.

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