Batching System Improves Inventory Accuracy

REPCO, a provider of standard-setting flour oxidation and maturing services, vitamin and mineral premixes, micro-ingredient dispensing systems and on-site field servicing, wanted to improve the following:

REPCO was using RS Batch, an industry-standard batching and material tracking software. Within the batching system, pre-programmed recipes were stored and the material tracking software, using the recipe information, assigned the appropriate material to the feeders. Many of the recipes were pre-programmed and were easy to run. However, recipes were not easy to build on the fly, so new or different recipes were typically manually controlled with handwritten documentation. 

Another challenge with the existing batching system was a requirement by the system to assign amounts to all 15 feeders, even when they were not used in that recipe.

Additionally, some recipes required hand-adds of ingredients or multiple ingredients in one feeder and their existing system was not dynamic enough for this process.

As a result, the accumulation of these challenges led to the following:

Kasa Controls & Automation developed a new batching system interface that allows the plant operators to:

REPCO processes were streamlined and they were able to:

Today, the supervisor enters jobs into the system and production is able to see it in real time. They know as soon as it is keyed into the system what recipes to run, what material is needed, how much is available, the amount that is needed, and the batch size. 

A batch delivery dashboard now gives them more visibility into what is going on. Previously, it took a lot of clicks and drilling down into the system to get that information and detail. Now, REPCO is assured they are feeding the right amounts of ingredients.

Kasa Controls & Automation software tracks and ensures every ingredient is accounted for before allowing a “good” entry in status column of ingredients, and they no longer have to jump back and forth between screens of two systems.

“I couldn’t ask for a better team to work with than the one at Kasa,” said REPCO general manager Justin Hartman. “They met the agreed-upon deadlines, followed up quickly on questions, and, most importantly, delivered a finished product that has saved a tremendous amount of time across our organization by automating a number of our processes.”

Time Savings and Improved Accuracy

Ultimately, Kasa Controls & Automation was able to save REPCO approximately 16 hours a week of manual tracking and documentation, while improving the accuracy of its inventory. 

For more information on Kasa Controls and Automation, call John Claman at 785-825-7181 ext. 185 or visit www.kasacontrols.com.