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Oakey Abattoir, Australia, received first class honors in the 2007 Queensland Smart Awards for their Marel beef traceability system. The reward is given to organizations that have shown the business know-how and sheer tenacity to turn a smart idea into a reality.

Australia's Premier and Minister for Trade Peter Beattie granted Oakey Abattoir the Premier’s award for the Food and Agribusiness category.  “Oakey Abattoir has developed a quality system that is able to trace each piece of meat back to its property of birth.  This system will provide the abattoir with vital defect and yield feedback within its high volume environment,” Mr. Beattie said in a news release from the State of Queensland Department of State Development

The traceability technology from Marel allows Oakey Abattoir, to control all aspects of production.

The Marel deboning flowline was installed in 2005 and includes four flowlines that take beef quarters to 96 individual workstations, where the beef is boned and trimmed before it’s finally vacuum packed for further processing in Japan. When processing up to a thousand cattle per shift it is crucial to be able to monitor performance and yield. The MPS production software makes it all possible.

The deboning line is fed with sides that are scanned into the system. The data is entered into the MPS software that runs the process. The production system and software provide full product traceability, from plate to farm and back again.

"Traceability is a very important aspect of the whole operation and it helps us maintain our strong market position in Japan," Bob Bradford, Oakey plant manager explained. "Every carcass that goes through the plant, from slaughtering to packing, can be traced."

Detailed reports and online monitoring give management the tools to tweak the production as they wish. Total control of raw material flow into production per production line, yield monitoring of each primal, and the total amount of completed and packed product are just some of the many useful production reports provided by the system.

"It is important to remember that what you cannot measure you cannot control," said Bradford. "And this system gives you the data you need to manage the operation and help you take appropriate action to achieve the results you want."