Should there be an outbreak of a disease (such as listeriosis) from a cold storage facility or a warehouse, it is important to have a warehouse management system in place which has the capability of not only tracking and tracing a product but implementing total product recall.
Anthea Van Breemen, director of Forte Warehouse Solutions – which merged with Macro 2000 earlier this year – told FTW that many perishable goods entered via Durban and were stored in warehouses close to the port. She said it was therefore important for KwaZulu Natal-based exporters and importers to benchmark themselves according to global supply chain standards.
“The track and trace ability of a warehouse management system (WMS), with the added ability to handle total recall, has become the global standard without which companies cannot export their goods,” she said, pointing out that the Macro 2000 Cold Storage Warehouse Management System software controlled the operations of a warehouse.
“For third party warehouses and cold stores, the control of all of this on a customer’s behalf is imperative.” She added that over the years the Macro 2000 Cold Storage WMS had expanded from simply controlling the pallet within the warehouse, to controlling the attributes of each pallet. “In the cold store environment this is even more necessary as there are more attributes to control. A warehouse management system should be able to track the temperature at arrival of the load,” she said.
This would alert shippers to whether or not the stock needed to be re-cooled. According to Van Breemen, when a product is dispatched the WMS records the temperature together with the details of the delivery customer and address. “In the event of a recall this information is quickly and accurately available,” she said. Should this occur the WMS must also be in a position to handle the reverse logistics and returns.
“Regulations dictate that vet sampling, if required, must be recorded and the load put on hold until released, with the correct documentation. Then each pallet must track the production batch and date, together with the expiry date of the stock. This is also true for pallets with mixed stock.” She said that warehousing space was at a premium and therefore it had become a trend that any pallets that were not full could be utilised for different stock with different attributes.
“Also a fine picking store by nature will have stock with mixed attributes in picking bays that will depend on a strong WMS for control.”
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The track and trace ability of a WMS, with the added ability to handle total recall, has become the global standard. – Anthea Van Breemen
