Fonterra - News, Features, and Slideshows

News

  • Fonterra workers will learn safety off-site with VR

    Fonterra has engaged engineering consultancy Beca to develop a virtual reality based health and safety training system that, it says, will let new employees navigate its manufacturing and distribution sites without the need to set foot on site and will help substantially reduce onboarding times.

  • The tech behind Fonterra’s move to activity-based working

    Many of the headline shifts to activity-based working (ABW) have been by banks and other companies in the financial services sector. But across the ditch in New Zealand, dairy company Fonterra this year carried out a significant ABW transformation as part of the relocation of its head office.

  • Fonterra opens up online trading platform

    Dairy giant Fonterra is opening its online dairy products trading platform globalDairyTrade, to allow other dairy companies to sell their products on the platform. It also intends to widen the range of Fonterra products for sale on globalDairyTrade.
    “Fonterra has been working with a number of international dairy companies to develop draft market rules that will enable this to happen,” says Gary Romano, managing director, Fonterra Trade & Operations.
    Major dairy producers Arla Foods and FrieslandCampina from Europe; California Dairies and DairyAmerica from the West Coast of the USA; and Murray Goulburn from Australia have had input into the development of a draft set of market rules that will govern multiple sellers using the platform, though no company has yet committed to offer product on the platform.
    Romano says that when globalDairyTrade was launched in July 2008 it was envisaged that other sellers of dairy products would eventually join the platform.
    “globalDairyTrade is releasing the draft rules today so that industry participants and stakeholders have the opportunity to offer suggestions and feedback. All parties are keen to be open and transparent so that globalDairyTrade moves to the next phase of its development with continued wide support from the global industry.”
    He says having other sellers on globalDairyTrade will add more volume and will lead to even more reliable price discovery. At the same time, it has the potential to attract more buyers, given the platform will offer products from different geographies, enabling better risk management.
    Since the launch globalDairyTrade sales have totalled US$3.2 billion. It currently trades around 600,000 metric tonnes of Fonterra products a year and has more than 300 registered bidders from 58 countries.”

  • Fonterra to expand use of SAP

    Fonterra will create 30 new jobs for skilled information technology workers installing SAP software at its manufacturing plants.
    The new investment will see Fonterra adopt SAP to run its consumer-branded dairy business in New Zealand and Australia and to handle its warehousing and the management of its manufacturing operations.
    The investment is another indication that the technology industry may be returning to normality following a hiatus caused by the economic downturn, when projects were routinely put on hold.
    Fonterra mostly uses Oracle software in its 24 New Zealand and 60 overseas manufacturing plants, much of which will be replaced.
    Chief information officer Chris Barendregt says most of the jobs will be created in Auckland and Hamilton, but there may be some flexibility about locations.
    The co-operative said last week that farmers' payouts for milk solids could exceed $8 a kilogram next year. Mr Barendregt says it is "always good in good times" but that had not affected the decision to give the project the green light, which had been made earlier.
    The company shelved a plan to move to an all-SAP environment in 2006, saying then that it had concluded it was not a priority for the business.
    Fonterra had that year completed a wrenching project – estimated to have cost about $120 million – to overhaul its supply chain management systems using SAP software and ditch its mainframe systems. That saw it move to a demand-driven production model and strip out a whole layer of administration.
    The goal of that initiative – Project Jedi – was to increase efficiency and slash inventories by ensuring the co-operative manufactured dairy products to order, rather than relying on its overseas sales offices to sell what the factories produced.
    Fonterra also uses SAP software to handle its accounts and human resources.
    Mr Barendregt says expanding SAP to the consumer-branded dairy and manufacturing areas will further simplify Fonterra's business and make the co-operative more efficient. The project would reduce the risks associated with using software that was now quite old and would provide better information for managers.
    What had changed since 2006 was that Fonterra was then considering "one big wall-to-wall transformation" of its manufacturing software with a "big sticker" price, he says. It has since worked out ways of breaking up the project into stages and retaining some software that controls equipment at its plants.
    "We have probably got a slightly different view of the value we can drive out of it as well. What you might consider to be good practice is continually changing." Fonterra expects the information technology project may help lure back some skilled New Zealand expats from overseas.

  • Fonterra shifts to Telecom's XT

    Fonterra is moving to Telecom for its mobile services, adopting the new XT network for mobile handset and data-card services.

  • Fonterra shifts to Gen-i for telco services

    Fonterra has gone live with the first of what it calls its direct telecommunications infrastructure services through Telecom's IT services unit Gen-i.
    Gen-i will provide wide area network (WAN) infrastructure and management services for Fonterra’s New Zealand and Australian sites, and desk telephony for the company's 47 global sites. Local area network (LAN) services for the New Zealand and Australian sites will shift to Gen-i later this year.

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