Innova solves a lot of issues for Hazeldenes

Across all departments in the poultry processing plant, modular Innova software solutions connect and serve Hazeldenes staff’s needs on the factory floor, in the control room or in the cold store. There are user-friendly modules for every role in the factory, from quality control manager to production planner and technical manager, offering real-time dashboards for every production process.

Mark Heintz, CEO of Hazeldenes, says, “Smart and modern poultry companies need to be agile. We are in the fast-moving consumer goods protein space; poultry is the protein that we produce and we need to use our data, our systems and our people to understand that we’re running in a very quick and live environment.”

Innova Traceability

Adam Hazeldene, General Manager Special projects, talks about Innova’s traceability module, “There was this one event that we stopped the product while it was still on the truck before going actually to the retailer. Without having that functionality within the software and without having full traceability through the system, it would have got to the customer and we would have been in a much different territory. We would have been in recall territory rather than in withdrawal territory.”

Intelligent software

Food processing is a highly dynamic industry. It would be very difficult for today’s poultry processing companies to operate without the support of an intelligent software platform that has specific ‘poultry knowledge’. In such a complex environment, Marel’s plant-wide innovative solutions make it possible to think smart and act quickly. Data-driven processing is critical to making informed decisions that can be implemented with very little notice.

Mark Hilson, ICT Manager, says, “The way the data is presented allows our business to make quicker, sharper decisions. This is quite valuable, rather than working with hearsay or getting the correct information with a delay. Our people started seeing what’s possible with Innova.”

Solving issues

Erin McGuinness, IT Project Manager, says, “Innova has solved a lot of data control issues and a lot of issues that we would have had, moving us more from a reactive business in the past to a proactive business.
We are a fast-moving consumer goods company. Therefore we don’t have a lot of time to plan and think about things. You can plan all you want, but when the birds come into the factory, they all have different shapes and sizes. So we have to react very quickly and Innova helps provide this information so that we can make really smart strategic business decisions.”

Real-time insight

In daily operations, Innova is the stable digital component in the plant on which everybody can rely. If an incoming flock varies in weight, if a machine shows a drop in performance, if customers suddenly change their orders or if a recipe needs to be changed, Innova gives real-time insight into how your system can be adjusted to solve the issue. Marel offers all the digital tools required to give you the resilience and speed-to-market you need to be competitive in the industry.