Chess puts ducks in a row at Cherry Valley

Cherry Valley Farms Limited has installed a Chess warehouse management system in its newest cold store to control the handling of its range of frozen duck products.  The Chess system was selected for its proven ability as part of programme to upgrade cold store operations and introduce improved stock accuracy and product traceability.

Established in the 1950s, Cherry Valley Farms Limited is now the largest vertically integrated duck farm in the world.  Many of the 7.5 million ducks raised by the company each year are used to produce a range of fresh, frozen and processed duck products for supply to high street multiples and the catering trade.  Products include raw frozen, raw fresh, cooked fresh and cooked frozen as well as recipe duck meals.  The company, part of the Nickerson group, also produces duck eggs and supplies day old ducklings to other producers. 

The company’s Caistor production plant was the first built for export of products. By 1998, successful growth of the business had placed pressure on the existing facilities and led to increased use of third party warehousing.  The decision to build the new cold store was taken after a review of the business, which identified the potential for a site upgrade and expansion at Caistor.  Although the new warehouse now handles much of its production, the company continues to use some third party services to cope with seasonal fluctuations.

An important requirement with the new cold store was increased stock auditing and traceability.  New and anticipated food industry regulations mean that companies must maintain detailed records of production schedules, storage conditions and deliveries.  A computerised warehouse management system was identified by Cherry Valley as an important enhancement to its already stringent quality control standards.

Building a brand new facility presented the opportunity to create an ideal materials handling environment.  After careful research and planning, Cherry Valley decided on a mobile racking solution to ensure maximum utilisation of available space, served by advanced reach trucks and controlled by a warehouse management system incorporating radio frequency terminals for accurate real time stock control.

“We wanted to optimise the storage with a proven system that knows where everything is and allows us to see what’s there,” explains Rae Grieve, Transport & Distribution Manager, Cherry Valley Farms Limited.  “The availability of accurate and real time information leads directly to improvements in product traceability.”

Chess Logistics Technology was initially suggested by Cherry Valley’s RF equipment supplier because the two companies had worked together on a number of projects.

“I was able to visit another cold store which was running a Chess system,” says Rae Grieve.  “Chess was the only company on our shortlist of four suppliers that could show me a working cold store and provide a track record.

“Our IT department recommended that the new system should interface with our corporate AS400 computer so that cold store information could be exchanged with existing order processing and other business systems.  It proved to be very simple with the combination of the Chess software and the RF equipment.”

The new warehouse was opened in June 1998 with a capacity of 2500 UK size or 3300 Euro size pallets.  The warehouse has been designed so that each beam can accommodate three UK size or four Euro size pallets, and the ability of the Chess system to work efficiently with both sizes is important for warehouse operations.  To ensure maximum utilisation of space Cherry Valley stipulates that only pallets of one size can be stored in each beam at a time.  However, for complete flexibility, a beam can be used for either size and has four pallet labels, so when UK pallets are used the location number on the far right is not used.  This convention works well in preventing any confusion and eliminates the need for any further restrictions. 

Palletised loads arrive from the production area after blast freezing.  Information about the pallet is entered onto the Chess system at a PC terminal adjacent to the cold store entrance.  The Chess system is designed to support a large number of user defined parameters, and Cherry Valley enters information such as pallet size, the number of cases, product codes and best before dates.  A computer generated label, incorporating a unique pallet reference number, is attached to each pallet before it enters the cold store.

Once the pallet is inside the warehouse, the system issues a put away instruction to one of the two lift truck drivers via a truck mounted RF terminal.  The system automatically selects a suitable free location, ensuring that the pallet size is correct for the chosen beam and giving priority to locations in the open aisle of the mobile racking.  This is the most sensible option for Cherry Valley, although the automatic selection can be over-ridden if required.

Some product entering the cold store is directed to the make up aisle for break bulk picking and placed in low level beams.  The same aisle is also used to store pallets scheduled for forwarding to the third party cold store nearby.  By passing these pallets through the cold store, and processing the information on the warehouse management system, Cherry Valley is able to generate accurate information on its use of the third party facility.  Data from the system can be fed directly to the corporate computer to generate delivery notes for the external warehouse. 

The Chess system selects appropriate pallets using the production dates and best before dates entered when the pallets originally arrived at the cold store.  Picking is generally undertaken on the first in, first out principle to ensure that the oldest stock is used first.  However, some customers occasionally ask for products with specific best before dates so that they can take delivery of stock with longer shelf lives.  When this happens, the Chess system uses the specified criteria to select the correct pallets. 

Cherry Valley can also block selected stock from being selected for picking, perhaps to reserve stock for a specific customer or to enable stock of certain product lines to be built up for transfer to the third party cold store. Stock movement is restricted by simply entering the appropriate commands at one of the Chess system’s management screens. 

During the first year of operations, over 25,000 pallets of Cherry Valley products passed through the warehouse.  The new system has also made a major impact on the company’s regular stock checks.  In the old warehouse, stock taking used to take five or six people all morning.  But with the new system, utilising random selection, it now takes one person just half an hour. 

“The Chess system provides 100 per cent stock control accuracy in the warehouse and means we have complete product stock history and traceability,” says Rae Grieve. “This is very important for the food industry.  We are very pleased with the Chess system in the cold store and are aware of its potential uses in other parts of our business.”