Armada, the supply chain optimisation company in the Labat Africa group, has announced the completion of Reflex, its order entry system for companies in the food and beverage distribution market.
Armada director Jerome Chalice says Armada has invested more than R2m over the last 16 months in the development of the product, in conjunction with Italian-based food giant Parmalat.
Reflex, targeted for release early next year, was created to address an identified gap in the market. It is in pilot phase at Parmalat`s East London depot.
"Traditional order entry systems have two key limitations," says Chalice. "Firstly, those based on enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are very slow due to the complex nature of pricing in this market.
Secondly, they need to be constantly online to ensure synchronisation against a central database. This is not always possible in South Africa, where companies often have widely distributed operations. Reflex can continue operating even when connectivity to the host server is dropped."
Reflex maintains a near-mirror image of the most recent system information in the background, on the client PC. It connects periodically to the host server, synchronising all data. Chalice says Reflex has made full use of the best available database commit technology. "All transactions are subject to the two-phase commit process, which guarantees transaction integrity."
Key to the success of Reflex is its ability to be deployed on a wide range of computers, from call centre to telesales to handheld computers. "This means van sales can be reconciled without the error rate associated with the paper-based delivery process," Chalice says. "Reduction of credit notes in the delivery will be a major benefit."
Reflex has been developed for and with Parmalat, which entered South Africa in 1998 through the acquisition of Cape-based dairy companies Bonnita and Towerkop. Reflex will ultimately be deployed at over 40 sites nationwide.
Parmalat is one of the largest local users of BPCS, the ERP system represented locally by Armada. Parmalat IT manager Jean Durand says Reflex was conceived specifically to draw on the strengths of and supplement BPCS. "It interfaces directly with BPCS, and provides us with the depth of functionality we need as a distributed organisation."
Chalice says Reflex will ultimately be language-, database- and platform-independent, with the capability to interface with other ERP systems. It will have the potential to be sold to other companies in the packaged consumer goods market. Armada has attracted considerable interest in the product from prospective local and overseas clients. "We have developed several similar applications for other clients down the years," says Chalice. "This has allowed us to apply best business practices in Reflex, making it a potential world beater in terms of its functionality."
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