Top manufacturers in the food sector recognise that rapid product innovation is core to their businesses success, and that having accurate supplier information is essential in achieving this goal. agile:SA software has been designed specifically for food manufacturers to make the whole supplier approval process much quicker, easier and more robust.
In the past supplier information was often spread across a variety of tools and spreadsheets, making managing the approval process both time consuming and difficult.
agile:SA manages all your data in one cloud-based system, so details about suppliers and ingredients are immediately, and securely, accessible from anywhere. It also automates many of the time consuming chores for Technical teams. Our “Chaser” technology automatically emails suppliers when documentation needs renewing, or assessments or SAQs are due.
Supplier approvals can be tracked at both supplier site and ingredient levels. It tracks the full range of certifications, ensuring you have a tight control over your supply chain.
agile:SA helps you to perform better in audits, with evidence always available at your fingertips, so auditors can clearly see your supplier approval process.
Weekly reports keep you updated with progress, flagging up any accreditations, ingredient specifications or other documentation that is coming up for renewal, so you stay ahead of the game. In summary, agile:SA makes it easier for Technical teams to support innovation and NPD, by speeding up the ingredient and supplier approval process.
The Chaser
Our powerful Chaser tool will be revolutionary to your workload, saving your technical team valuable time spent chasing suppliers for out-of-date information, and freeing them up to concentrate on the things that matter in order to be competitive.
The “Chaser” will send emails to suppliers reminding them when specifications, certificates, risk assessments, audits and SAQs (or other documents) are due for renewal.
It also speeds up your complaints process by chasing suppliers for responses to any non-conformances that are raised. And reminders can also be sent to your team when something is flagged as being due for a periodic reassessment.
All of this is automatically recorded against the supplier record so it is easy to keep track of all your outbound communications in one place.
It’s really simple for your suppliers to respond by uploading new documentation through a link in the email, and automatically generated reports show an overview of all suppliers that have been chased, and those that haven’t yet provided documents needed.
This makes it quick for your technical team to handle responses. Files will automatically appear in your system for you to review and sign off. Once signed off, these are automatically added to the relevant supplier record.
Depending on the risk profile of a supplier or ingredient, you can set how often you review a particular company or chase suppliers, giving you total control and flexibility. The technical contact designated to receive any “Chasers” can easily be updated, or reset to someone else whenever needed.
Robust and secure technology
All of our agile products, such as agile:SA and agile:NPDtech, are built on agileBase, a really powerful and secure platform that is ideal for modern food businesses.
Made up of modules accessed through a “tiles interface”, it is easy to see and manage all your data in one place. Comments can be attached to anything in the software – from a supplier record to an ingredient specification – giving you a good overview of activity from across the whole team.
Every change in the software is then recorded with a detailed audit trail that records when it was done and by who – and different accounts can have different privileges.
Alerts from the Food Standards Agency, automatically appear on the dashboard and our software will match them against any suppliers, alerting you to take action as early as possible, if needed.
Be the best with our agile food software
Whether you are a Technical manager or in charge of NPD, our products can be scaled up at any time. Our full suite of modules enables you to manage product innovation, as well as compliance and approvals. agile:SA gives you confidence in your supply chain and lets your technical team focus on adding value to your business, confident that you will have all the evidence you need, available in seconds.
agile:SA starts from £149/month. To find out more about agile:SA or agile:NPDtech, please get in touch today on 0117 321 0104, or email [email protected] to request an online demo.