Mad Cow heightens lot tracking, but is ERP up to snuff?

The discovery of Mad Cow disease in the U.S. late last year may trigger tougher traceability requirements, which will cause meat processors and others in the food industry to take a closer look at lot and batch tracking capabilities. However, say experts, the industry's tracking requirements aren't easily solved by most ERP systems.

Bill Swanton, a research director with Boston-based analyst firm AMR Research, writing in a recent note, states that regulators likely will accelerate a move to electronic records in the wake of the Mad Cow discovery. He also cites the challenges of tracking meat from a specific animal, and other hurdles, such as the fact that steps such as equipment cleaning need to be linked to production records. Manufacturing execution systems generally have fared better at meat industry traceability than ERP, Swanton notes, because they track process measurements.

Few ERP systems contain the type of detailed batch information necessary to effectively track meat products, says Patrick Pilz, CEO of CSB-SYSTEM International, a vendor of ERP and production management software for the food industry. CSB's suite, says Pilz, features an integrated batch information system that tracks the details of each production step.

"It's not always the [cattle] suppliers that cause contamination," says Pilz, speaking of broader food safety. "A piece of equipment, like a stuffer, can malfunction, so the meat processor needs to be able to trace each step in the process backwards and forwards."

In the meat industry, notes Pilz, an animal is disassembled into various end-items. Gathering data on this process is vital to decision-making, Pilz contends. "The key question in the food industry is how to best market the individual animal," he says. "Maximizing the yield from each animal is supported by electronic batch information that allows you to trace the impact of each decision you make."

The meat industry is dealing with various technologies in the quest for safety (see box at left), but the benefits of detailed traceability can go beyond compliance. As Pilz puts it, "Yes, the latest news on Mad Cow perhaps is a driver to do more [with traceability], but the progressive companies already are doing more, for economic reasons."