Meeting challenges at Robert Wiseman Dairies

Introduction

Robert Wiseman Dairies processes and delivers fresh liquid milk to customers throughout Great Britain. The company was founded by Robert Wiseman Senior in 1947, originally delivering the product by means of a horse and cart! The business of milk processing and distribution has developed considerably since that period and Wiseman has driven its own development through technological innovation and investment.
Today, the Company has five dairies and thirteen depots throughout Great Britain, and a turnover in excess of £480m. This equates to the processing of about 1.21 billion litres of milk annually. Their focus continues to be on the liquid milk sector, where Wiseman has developed a strong track record with the major supermarket groups. More than 70% of sales may be to multiple retailers, but other sectors such as convenience retailing and the contracts market are still very important.. The Company’s record of service and quality, places it in an excellent position to benefit from the increased demand for supplies to this sector.
Wiseman Dairies is continuing to expand its operations. Terms have been agreed for the acquisition of the site for a sixth dairy located in the south-west of England, with building work expected to commence early in 2006.

Laboratory Information Management

Each dairy operates its own laboratory, responsible for ensuring that the company’s product is always of the highest possible quality. To this end, frequent testing is carried out at every stage of the production process. This generates huge amounts of data that must be recorded and collated, requiring powerful information management software.
In 1999, Robert Wiseman Dairies decided to investigate the purchase of a new, enterprise-level laboratory information management system (LIMS). Their existing solution had become outdated. In addition, there were concerns about year 2000 compatibility. A selection team was formed and they began to put together a list of features that the new LIMS should have.
The first of these concerned the architecture. As milk is a highly perishable product and the product cannot be released until QC testing has been passed, it was deemed mandatory that each site had to be self-contained and maintain its own database. However, it was equally important that product testing regimes and specifications be centrally controlled, with any changes automatically distributed to every laboratory. There was also a concern that the new system should utilise Wiseman’s business processes, present familiar terminology, and that screens should be as similar as possible to those that the staff were used to. In the words of a member of the selection team: “We want an easy system that looks familiar.”
The selection team considered about half a dozen potential LIMS, eventually short listing two for in-depth evaluation. As a result of extensive analysis, STARLIMS was eventually selected as the solution of choice, as it could meet all of the company’s requirements, and had sufficient flexibility to completely mirror Wiseman’s existing business processes.
The STARLIMS implementation involved the creation of custom screens with layouts similar to those previously used. Business rules were created that mirrored the processes used by Wiseman Dairies, leading to a solution that had a familiar look and modus operandi and that therefore minimised the training effort required. Special requirements, such as distinctions between tests whose results are immediately available, those whose results take some time to produce and those which are optional were also added.
The requirement to allow central maintenance of testing regimes and specifications was addressed using standard database replication technology. A master database was installed at Head Office to allow management of specifications, with updates automatically forwarded to each laboratory. The solution employs latent transactional consistency, following a “real-enough time” data model. Using this approach, information flows throughout the Enterprise as quickly as required and the system can manage some fault tolerance by queuing transactions if the remote server is unavailable. This solution has proved to be reliable and continues to work well.

Taking LIMS out of the laboratory

Since implementation, the system has been continually enhanced. New functions include shelf life testing (used in the commissioning of new products), and enhanced calibration and training records modules.
The most significant of these enhancements has been the addition of a batch weigh module, which has had the effect of taking the LIMS out of the laboratory and on to the production floors.
Robert Wiseman Dairies, like any manufacturer, must comply with the UK Weights and Measures (Packaged Goods) regulations. The aim of these regulations is to provide a regulatory framework for the automatic filling of packages by defining acceptable tolerances for variation, so that the purchaser may buy with the confidence that they are protected against short weight or measure, while businesses are protected against unfair competition. Wiseman’s explored various commercially available packages for maintaining the necessary records and producing the required reports, but were unable to find a system that met all of their requirements. Consequently, they commissioned the STARLIMS UK team to produce a prototype module as “proof-of-concept”. This was successful, and STARLIMS is now used by all of the Wiseman sites to ensure compliance with the Trading Standards regulations.

When asked what difference STARLIMS has made to operations at Robert Wiseman Dairies, Amanda Wharton, the group’s Systems Support Manager, commented that now results are available in real time and that any issues are immediately highlighted, allowing them to be addressed quickly. The central management of specifications and combination of centralised and local control has greatly increased the efficiency of testing and STARLIMS facilitates compliance with the various regulations that apply to the business. “Having been configured to meet our requirements, the system is user-friendly and can easily be ported to new production sites. The people at STARLIMS UK take time to understand the challenges of our business and are able to suggest innovative solutions for us to consider. We have an excellent working partnership which has developed over the years. STARLIMS UK appear to pride themselves on always saying ‘YES’. Anything is do-able!”