Articles
GS1 Health Check for supply chain sanity (December 2005)
Asked about the number one benefit of the GS1 Health Check, ONE Group's Colin Chenery had a simple answer: clarity.
The Organics and Natural Enterprise Group is growing fast, and with its rapid expansion has come increased pressure to minimise mistakes and reduce the time spent tracking materials through to manufacturing and dispatch.
"We wanted an objective measure of where we were at in terms of our systems, the need for scanning and tracking and our resource planning," Colin said. "The Health Check gave us that clarity and the benefit of an outsider's expert viewpoint."
GS1 Australia's Health Check program includes a review of the GS1 system's (previously known as the EAN•UCC system) use throughout a business. From there, if your business is preparing to implement the GS1 system, the report outlines the steps needed to progress. For businesses like ONE Group that are already working with the GS1 System, the Health Check report highlights opportunities to leverage the benefits of the system further.
The Health Check begins with a questionnaire to determine business requirements and priorities for the analysis. Because nothing can replace first hand observation, the questionnaire is followed up with a one-day site visit by a GS1 Professional Services Advisor. During their visits, advisors gather more data, analyse and document the results and present the findings in the Health Check Report.
The most common areas addressed by the Health Check Service includes:
- Ordering and receiving stock or raw materials from suppliers
- How stock and raw materials are put away
- Tracking raw materials into production
- Tracking work in progress inventories
- Transferring finished goods into storage
- Receiving and processing orders from customers
- Stocktaking
- Product traceability and product recalls
According to GS1 Australia's Professional Services Manager, Sunita Kewada, the GS1 Health Check is proving popular with businesses either simply seeking to comply with trading partner requirements or looking to streamline their business processes.
In ONE Group's case, the Health Check was all about reducing costs with efficient systems and, Colin said, the report gave the company much needed focus.
"The categories of analysis and the method of grading them based on company size and growth stage used in the GS1 Health Check, clearly highlighted what areas needed attention and to what degree. The report will also provide a valuable reference point as we review our progress, new inventory track and trace systems become critical to our operations, and new operational needs arise." he said.
