Laban Foods is the biggest specialized producer of herbal butter in the Netherlands. Besides their own brand, Laban produces private label products for super market chains like Jumbo and C1000. On a day by day base, the company faces challenges in order to successfully operate within the dairy industry. For example, Laban needs to take into account short delivery windows as they produce products with a short shelf life. Besides, they have to cope with fluctuating prices for raw materials that influence the sales price.

Integrated food specific software

To get a better grasp on such issues, Laban requires a software solution that takes into account the requirements of food producing companies. Therefore, Laban Foods uses the combination of Microsoft Dynamics and Foodware. Using this company wide ERP solutions brings big advantages to Laban. René Laban, CEO of Laban Foods: "Saving time, and getting control. Microsoft Dynamics and Foodware allow us to do that for the complete business process. Everything is connected to each other, from the purchase of raw materials all the way to selling finished products. In between you also have manufacturing, quality, shipment, invoicing, finance and commercial. It all comes together in one suite."

Use of role based software environment

Since they started using the software in 2005, Laban Foods has already completed several updates. As from 2012, they are using the Role Tailored Client version of this solution. “During this update, we decided to stop using any customizations. So we went for just the standard. Right now, we are on this track for seven months. And we have nearly no deficiencies. Actually, we have full insight in all processes.

René Laban: "The Role Tailored Client is the user interface of Dynamics and Foodware and assumes a role based environment. This means that the solution has a role available for each person within a company. This enables the possibility to only show that information that is relevant for the quickly and efficiently executing the daily tasks."

Product specifications in Foodware

An example of such a role is the quality manager at a food company. Several functionalities within Foodware have been optimized for the role of a quality manager. For example creating and printing product specifications.

Michiel Bakker, Quality Manager at Laban Foods: "It’s very easy in Microsoft Dynamics. You just enter the specifications for the raw materials and Navision calculates the specifications of the finished product. So we only give the software the necessary input and Navision comes up with the necessary output."

Tracking and tracing in Dynamics ERP

Another important issue for quality managers is tracking and tracing according to Michiel Bakker. "All products that arrive will receive a lot number. Once we start producing, we enter the lot number of the product that we use in Microsoft Dynamics. As a result, you can always trace which lot numbers have been used for a certain finished product. Raw materials always have a limited Best Before Date and this allows you to always find when and where they have been used. Therefore, you can always see which products have been consumed, in case we might have to do a recall. Everything is traceable through Navision."

Advantages of integrated EDI

Another role is the role of sales. For this role, the software provides added value through the integration with EDI. Christa Laban, sales assistant at Laban Foods: "We often get our sales order through EDI, but also through fax and mail." Retailers often require that vendors offer the possibility to receive and send messages through EDI, but it also brings a lot of advantages to vendors. Christa Laban gives an example: "Without a doubt saving time. The orders directly arrive in Dynamics. No more manual entries are required, which is pretty nice in the end. Well… the chance for errors is also much smaller as the order is directly received from the customer and processed in the software the same way."