Dairy Crest to smooth processes on Oracle

Chilled foods giant Dairy Crest says it expects to streamline its back-office functions and improve process manufacturing, product forecasting and operations on the back of an integrated Oracle E-Business Suite. The firm intends to use Oracle’s advanced planning and demand forecasting applications to improve inventory control, production planning and supply and demand balancing. Beyond that, it will harness the Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) system to synchronise operations and maintenance and prevent scheduling problems and unplanned downtime. David Batts, business systems director at Dairy Crest, says: “We wanted to manage our business more efficiently, improve the manufacturing, production and capacity planning, and enhance sales forecasting. By selecting Oracle, we now have an information foundation, from database to applications, that will help us continue to create competitive advantage.” The pilot project is expected to go-live in October with complete roll-out across all UK sites by the end of next year.