Owned by Coca-Cola Amatil, the company has been manually handling plant management and strategic planning by using Excel spreadsheets.

However, as the business expands and the volume of variable factors increases including the cost of production, labor and freight, and seasonal fruit cycles, SPC Ardmona needed a better planning and modelling solution.

As a result the company has implemented SSA Global Technologies Inc.'s Infor SCM Advanced Planning (AP) to optimize its Australian fruit production operations, and improve customer service. Mike McCormack, corporate planning manager at SPC Ardmona, said it was a strategic priority to re-model the business for optimum productivity.

He said this required greater visibility of operations at the plant level, specifically an accurate insight into production costs at each level and location across the business. "This included the ability to proactively determine the start and end of the various fruit processing seasons in order to be able to direct better use of labor, resources and capital at its Goulburn Valley plants," McCormack said.

"This involved being able to ask a wide range of 'what if' questions that trade-off labor costs against fruit degradation and storage costs, and also factor in market demand and other economic conditions that affect production." SPC Ardmona also wanted to provide the best service to its customers through ensuring all sales demands are covered.