Case Study: How K3 Syspro helps food supplier Fiddes Payne boost performance and secure stock traceability

Traceability is a top priority for everyone in manufacturing, especially those operating in the highly regulated food and drink sector. Businesses face mounting pressure to invest in systems which closely track materials right through the supply chain to the customer’s door. Embracing digitisation gives manufacturers full visibility at every stage of the process, whilst driving efficiencies and boosting productivity. For the last 10 years, food business Fiddes Payne has exploited SYSPRO software from K3 to help transform its operation and break new ground in the home baking and savoury sector.

Fiddes Payne is an innovative food business which works in partnerships with producers and manufacturers, supplying branded goods for the likes of Jamie Oliver, Disney and BOSH! Established in 1993, the manufacturer has enjoyed significant growth in recent years, serving markets both at home and overseas.

With growth come challenges and Fiddes Payne sought to better manage its operations by implementing ERP. In 2009, the company converted to a SYSPRO ERP system to increase stock traceability, reduce stock holding levels, introduce more accurate billing and enhance customer service.

Fiddes Payne supplies a variety of savoury and home bake products including cake decorations / Picture: Getty/iStock

Today, the business continues to evolve thanks to its SYSPRO ERP backbone. When embarking on its ERP journey, Fiddes Payne‘s priority was to support its customer-centric approach to helping producers deliver inspiring food offers. This demanded a more joined-up way of handling customer data, billing and stock. The K3 Syspro team was ideally placed to implement industry-built digital solutions.

The business had been operating disparate systems, which were inefficient in their data handling, failed to manage stock levels effectively and didn’t support appropriate levels of customer service. K3 Syspro’s remit was to step in and deliver a solution that would connect manufacturing, distribution and finance into a centralised system to handle all data and reports.

Duplicate entries were entirely eliminated as the business moved from its dependency on spreadsheets and documents to the new ERP model. This gave the sales team the visibility they needed to connect customer queries with relevant data instantly, allowing Fiddes Payne to offer a faster and more effective service.

Now that SYSPRO is fully integrated, staff can seamlessly log customer communications, track product movements and use real-time data to support strategic decision-making. The ability to quickly extract and manipulate data has also helped Fiddes Payne reduce its stock investment by more than £500,000 and boost average order fulfilment to 97.5%.

The company’s ambitious leadership team continues to explore new ways of exploiting SYSPRO solutions. Meanwhile, K3 Syspro continues to offer support as a customer-focused ERP partner looking way beyond implementation to deliver tangible long-term gains.