Harvesting growth
Producing an increasingly diverse range of fruit and berry-based
foods including cider, juices, sauces, and cakes, both for retail
and OEM, Kiviks’ orchards are home to more than 70 different
varieties of apple. Fuelled by a great love of apples, food, and
drink, the company hosts a farm shop, restaurant, museum, and
tree nursery, and welcomes over 200,000 visitors every year.
As a small but fast-growing company, the biggest challenge for
Kiviks Musteri was to retain the authenticity, family-run values,
and environment which are intrinsic to its success, while having
the ability and agility to compete with larger counterparts.
Over the past ten years, Kiviks has more than doubled in size,
both in revenue terms and in staff numbers, while its product
range has increased by around 15%, expanding the number of
SKUs in operation.
As Supply Chain Director/CIO Nina Hjalmarsson puts it: “Given
the scale of our business, it is impossible to have the resources
and IT infrastructure that our larger counterparts might, so we
have to work smarter, be more agile, and ensure optimum levels
of efficiency.”
Putting cloud at the core
Kiviks had a very clear vision for a change management
program to capitalize on growth and provide a foundation for its
future, with cloud firmly at its core. Recognizing limitations in its
ability to physically expand the business in its unique
orchard-rich location, Kiviks commissioned a third-party
warehouse to support expansion and its need for increased
capacity. In parallel, new technical infrastructure was required,
as Kiviks wanted to outsource its IT and focus on its core
competencies. The company had outgrown the legacy
Movex/Infor M3™ system it had run for more than 20 years,
and as an on-premises platform, that system didn’t fit with its
cloud vision.
In response to this requirement, Kiviks and Infor® worked
collaboratively to scope out a project focused on migrating
Kiviks from its existing solution, to a single-tenant cloud model
in 2017, to a wholesale shift to a full multi-tenant cloud
platform—Infor CloudSuite™ Food & Beverage.
In addition to its familiarity with the roots of the system, which is
based on Infor OS and Infor M3, Kiviks selected Infor CloudSuite
Food & Beverage based on its industry-specific capabilities,
predefined best practices, and knowledge from larger
companies. The solution supports ever increasing transparency,
traceability, food safety and waste reduction requirements.
For Kiviks, this was paramount in managing increasing stock
turns and best-before dates, as well as more strict demands
when it comes to traceability throughout the full supply chain.
Infor Factory Track® also formed part of the platform, helping to
boost efficiency in outbound logistics.
Across its third-party systems, Kiviks worked with hosting
specialist Elastic Move and M3 specialists and Infor partner
Texus, to adjust integrations and build APIs in order to facilitate
with Infor CloudSuite Food & Beverage and to set up a private
cloud environment facilitated by AWS to host several systems.
Digital differentiation
Now live, Infor CloudSuite Food & Beverage underpins a
smarter way of working for Kiviks, helping the company to
achieve its goals and compete on a level playing field with
much larger competitors. The solution gives Kiviks the ability
to stay on track with its overall strategy while creating
day-to-day improvements.
“We see the value of the new system every day through small
improvements in many areas, easier ways of working, greater
visibility to intervene or seek out opportunities, or review better
ways of working,” Hjalmarsson says. “We can stay ahead of our
competitors through being more agile in responding to new
trends, collaborating on a new idea and launching these on the
shop floor quickly because our processes are being more
efficient today.”
The benefits are far-reaching, with the potential to extend even
further into Kiviks’ business over time. CloudSuite Food &
Beverage handles all aspects of logistics, providing visibility into
costs at every stage, instilling greater control and trust in the
figures to calculate profitability and manage growth in a refined
and measured way. Kiviks is now adjusting its processes to
ensure profitable growth based on facts and figures from the
cloud solution.
Gone are the days of just a few people holding a majority of
knowledge, and as a result, “fake truths” presenting potential
challenges. The cloud architecture facilitates standardized
processes which work in a standardized way to represent an
efficient way of working. As well as greater data security, 24/7
access to support, and lower TCO, training requirements are
minimized, and adoption expedited.
Timing and traceability are everything
The new features and functions within Infor CloudSuite Food &
Beverage are helping Kiviks improve the timing of harvesting,
traceability of its raw materials, and the ability to meet tight
production and supply chain schedules.
Kiviks operates 24/7 production, with three shifts running at any
given time, to maximize the utilization of the factory, where they
face limitations in inbound and outbound logistics due to its
remote location. Because stock moves rapidly through the
production process and supply chain, it’s imperative that Kiviks
stays in full control of the distribution chain between the plant
and the third-party warehouse located 1.5 hours north of the
plant. Late re-scheduling is a huge challenge for the logistics
department, as there is storage space for approximately 6 hours’
production at inbound and 2 hours’ production at outbound.
There is also a great need to have the ability to track and
support traceability to the individual batch, something that
wasn’t straightforward previously.
Blending the old with the new
In developing new flavors, Kiviks’ product range has increased
by around 15% and as such, the product lifecycle has had to
become faster. Controlling the supply chain while minimizing
waste is a huge challenge, but Kiviks’ change management
program, supported by Infor CloudSuite Food & Beverage, has
helped to optimize the processes.
Curating a safer strategy
“Our cloud journey with Infor has ensured that our food chain is
more efficient, safer and profitable,” Hjalmarsson says. It has
also reduced Kiviks’ total cost of ownership (TCO), as well as
decreasing its reliance on support, while expanding the
company’s knowledge of business processes. Because it is user
friendly, it is easier for the younger generation of the workforce
to use, and allows staff to focus on their roles rather than formal
or informal training.
Its ability to integrate with other key systems maximizes the
value of Kiviks’ cloud program, ensuring that all insights are
available to support the best decision-making and planning.
Giving back to the future
As Kiviks moves forward, the company is looking to delve
deeper into the profitability of its product mix, reviewing
margins and profitability, and looking at where strategies can be
refined. The company views its move to multi-tenant cloud as a
springboard to initiatives such as Industry 4.0, which Kiviks is
keen to adopt to enhance its environmental credentials and
work to achieve long-term sustainability goals.
For example, the production planning data from CloudSuite
Food & Beverage can ensure that Kiviks only uses the minimum
amount of water, and that any waste water is re-used sensibly
and sustainably. The company’s goals to reduce electricity
consumption, carbon footprint, and water use are of equal
importance to its commercial agenda, and CloudSuite Food &
Beverage is viewed as a key component of that strategy.
“In our project with Infor we have a huge amount of confidence
that we have achieved our change management goal, and have
at our helm a platform from which to embrace our future
journey as a company,” Hjalmarsson says.
By moving to a multi-tenant cloud deployment, Kiviks now has
faster access to new innovations and a more future-proof
business: “Not only do we get new capabilities in the regular
monthly cloud updates, we are already seeing the benefits of
the much shorter time from raising a new idea with the
Infor Product Manager to the time it becomes available to us in
the system. With all Infor CloudSuite Food & Beverage
customers running many of the same processes we believe
this will result in a much stronger ecosystem with common
future requirements.”