Syngenta Flowers, Inc.

Syngenta Flowers is dedicated to the breeding of innovative flower varieties that offer outstanding performance in the professional greenhouse, at retail, in the landscape and in the home garden. They are one of the largest wholesale breeders of flower cuttings in the world.

In late 2007, Syngenta purchased Fischer Companies which was powered by a unique ERP system created by Latitude 40 founders Andrew Anderson and Daniel DeLeeuw. Their objective when approached by Fischer back in 1998 was to provide a common platform that would unite Fischer's worldwide sales organizations with their various types of cutting production sites located all over the world. Over the years, this system evolved into a tool with modules covering pretty much every aspect of the business making it very efficient and productive. (See below for a description of some of these areas and functionalities.)

This software continues to be used by Syngenta today; however, one of the current projects at Syngenta is the creation of a new SAP/.NET based platform combining the functionalities of both Syngenta and Fischer legacy software into a single platform. As business process analysts/experts from the Fischer business, Latitude 40 has been played a critical consulting role in this endeavor, working alongside Infosys and other consulting firms to get it done.

Logistics

With diverse production sites located around the world supplying product globally, the logistics behind such an operation require creative automation help. Workload is reduced with software that assists with the harvesting and shipping processes, including batch printing of shipping documents such as packing lists, box content labels, bills of lading, proforma invoices and other mandatory paperwork required by export and import agencies such as the USDA, USDHS and other foreign government agencies.

Track & Trace

Real-time USDA required tracking of product from production to harvest to retail through barcoding with limited labor needs. Tracking accuracy cannot be taken lightly as large companies have been shut down due to disease that couldn't be tracked according to the needs of the US government.

"When the traceability USDA legal requirement went into effect, most companies implemented a standard system of barcoding and scanning throughout their supply chain which added significant overhead to their shipping processes. Given the high volume of product we ship in peak-season (millions of flower cuttings per week), we sought a more advanced solution to limit that overhead. Together with Latitude 40, an ingenious system of tracking was developed that requires virtually no scanning whatsoever and actually improves our performance in terms of efficiency and quality."

Achim Hitzigrath
President, Vivero International (Syngenta Supplier)

Sales Forecasting & Demand Planning

This tool provides views into current and past weekly sales figures with future projections allowing the creation and comparison of multiple sample offering scenarios. Ultimately, this becomes the completed demand plan for upcoming seasons which is in turn reverse engineered into a production plan.

Availability/Capacity Algorithm

One of the treasures of the system is the ability to provide the customer with accurate availability for all products and for any required delivery time whether it's over a year from today or if the product is needed immediately. While we can't disclose the algorithm behind this calculation, we can tell you that the combination of the algorithm and good procedural discipline has led to the highest availability accuracy level in the industry.

Order Entry & Maintenance

Most orders come in seamlessly via B to B connections with their largest brokers. The others are entered using a very user-friendly module that allows for speedy and accurate data entry. All orders are bound by the constraint of availability/capacity that is kept updated with direct links to the production sites around the world. In the case of any kind of availability reduction causing shortages, another tool allows for easy batch order adjustments where the most appropriate orders are easily adjusted through product substitution, back ordering, or direct shortage.

Federal Express Automation

A large quantity of product is shipped into and within the US via FedEx. The FedEx integration module takes advantage of FedEx Ship Manager Server technology to provide the following:

Combine the standard FedEx label and the various types of internal box content labels into a single customized label so one label can be applied to a box rather than two. This saves valuable time and reduces labeling errors.
Preprint these labels in a batch operation days in advance of shipment and report the tracking numbers to customers as a pre-notification of shipment.
Create labels at foreign farms that have domestic origins when scanned after US import clearance. This gives the customer the ability to ship Domestic Express with bottom line savings over International Priority charges.

Syngenta charters its own airline space to get product into the US, but then will hand the boxes over to FedEx for domestic delivery. This approach saves millions of dollars yearly over traditional FedEx International services. One challenge to overcome was the fact that the product is highly perishable and the transition period between USDA clearance and FedEx needs to be very smooth and efficient to avoid delays. Those boxes have a FedEx plane to catch and spending the time to print and apply FedEx labels after USDA release could lead to a missed flight and therefore delivery a full day later. This leaves the customer with a quality problem and is therefore unacceptable. Latitude 40 helped overcome this obstacle by providing functionality that allows pre-labeling of boxes for domestic shipment back at the original shipping plant in another country. So these boxes move from USDA inspection into FedEx possession directly without any delay.