CDC Factory

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"The most useable system I've ever seen" - Greencore Operations Director

ATLANTA, January 1, 2007—Following the successful implementation of CDC Factory at Greencore Cakes & Desserts, Operations Director David Gallagher revealed the company's reasoning behind its selection of CDC Software's groundbreaking real-time performance management software.

"It's the people who work with a system that make things happen," he says, "and CDC Software is the most useable of any system I've ever seen."

Greencore is one of Europe's leading ambient cake and desserts businesses, supplying major retailers and foodservice providers with a wide range of customer-brand and licensed cakes, desserts and puddings. Their $40m manufacturing facility at Hull (UK) was opened in 2000 and was designed as a one-stop source for its customers, combining high volume production with premium hand-decorated product.

The site had already developed an operational suite of performance information that provided the senior management team with what it required to make week-to-week and month-to-month decisions. "What we lacked, " says Gallagher, "was information for people on the shop floor that can affect the next five minutes."

Greencore went into the marketplace searching for a system that could deliver this requirement, and they went armed with a clear list of features they needed that system to provide. David Gallagher explains; "What we were looking for was something that was easy to use but which would supply the kind of information that a shop floor can use quickly. We had a very strong opinion that it had to have a holistic approach – it had to connect the shop floor to what the management system was doing."

After a detailed evaluation of the various alternatives, Greencore selected CDC Factory. "I'd have to say on reflection that the CDC Software solution was the only one that was anywhere near holistic – the rest were very, very disjointed. We absolutely felt that there was an immediate cultural fit with what we were trying to do."

The project has already engendered a number of important cultural changes within the business. Equally importantly, it has also delivered a number of financial benefits including a 5% saving on direct labor costs. The project is planned to show a return on investment in under 12 months and David Gallagher is confident that this will happen.

He says; "From what I've seen so far, I'd say that in future I'm going to be quoting this project as the best one I did as Operations Director of this company – and I've bought quite a lot of equipment! It's certainly changing the working day for people here and I'd wholeheartedly endorse it."