Wherefour update for food manufacturing and ERP system

Company: Wherefour, Inc.

Technology Snapshot: Wherefour, Inc., released version 1.8.1 of its food manufacturing software and enterprise resource planning (ERP) system on July 15, which incorporates features to enhance ingredient traceability, inventory control and production, save time, and simplify the end user experience.

Since its launch in May, Wherefour’s software upgrades have made it easier to add inventory by checking off items directly from purchase orders, which saves times, eliminates the opportunity for data entry errors, and ties items in the traceability log directly to the purchase order, said Matt Brown, company founder and CEO. Users also may easily modify inventory usage or results of a previous production run and still maintain the ability to create traceability reports instantly with the push of one button, Brown said. Wherefour also has an option to add lot numbers to invoices automatically, which is particularly helpful for producers of organic products, he said.

The demand-forecasting “what-if” tool, which provides an instant analysis of the number of production runs that can be completed based on current inventory, now allows users to choose multiple products to analyze for missing inventory and determines how much of each needs to be purchased to complete production. In addition, instructions may be added to bills of material to provide guidance for the production staff. Version 1.8.1 also allows users to convert final product easily to any inventory category after a production run, such as from pounds to cases. Brown said.