Vigilistics Inc.

Jan. 9, 2006
Software helps processors comply with Bioterrorism Act
Vigilistics, a company serving the dairy and food processing industries, has introduced configurable software for tracking, tracing and analysis of process manufacturing. Developed for seven global leaders in dairy and food manufacturing, Vigilistics software provides auditable records for Bioterrorism Act and FDA compliance, improves energy use, reduces product loss, and provides production data for ERP systems.Vigilistics software integrates with existing plant systems and PLCs, adding capabilities to the plant operators' systems. In the initial installation sites, Vigilistics systems are in mission-critical operations in fluid dairy, cheese, powdered milk, soup and other food applications. Vigilistics software is now available for global use in the dairy and food processing industries.Vigilistics comes with various standard analysis tools to make the package valuable right out of the box:
  • Vigilistics Lot Genealogy
  • allows searches for configurable fields such as date ranges, material IDs or bill of lading numbers, and returns a complete trace and recall display.

  • Vigilistics Departmental Shrinkage
  • presents the plant with a real time view into material transfers and losses. Product loss can be tracked down to the hour, and can be evaluated by department or specific unit.

  • Vigilistics Report
  • comes bundled with a suite of reports commonly required in processing plant such as CIP, inventory on demand and storage temperatures, that all meet or exceed FDA guidelines.
On Jan. 9, Craig Nelson, founder and CTO of Vigilistics, stated: "Today we celebrate the completion of a four-year effort with industry leaders to develop and prove the success of a configurable application, addressing the specific needs of the food processing industry. Our initial objective of providing auditable tracking and tracing has been achieved and proven to meet the requirements of the Bioterrorism Act and the FDA — requirements that all food and dairy manufacturers must comply with. We also have found many opportunities for economic benefits, often paying for the installation in less than six months."Vigilistics software solves three major challenges in today's food manufacturing industry:
  • Until now, no packaged, configurable software was available that met the requirement and intent of the Bioterrorism Act. In addition to the tracking and tracing required by that regulations, Vigilistics also monitors real-time inventory and provides built-in reports for FDA compliance, CIP and batch runs. In fact, the FDA has approved Vigilistics to replace chart recorders for legal compliance systems.

    Vigilistics representatives say that with their software, in five seconds, dairy plant managers can trace from finished products back to the specific deliveries of milk to the plant. They can then trace that load of milk through every path in the plant and determine which products contain that delivery, even in trace amounts. This would take many hours with other systems.

  • The economics of manufacturing are critically impacted by operations that Vigilistics monitors and helps to improve. Product loss, energy use, and other operating costs have an impact to the bottom-line profitability. A major dairy processor has saved well over $1 million per year in direct costs by monitoring, detecting, and preventing milk loss during processing. Another saved over $250,000 per year in wastewater charges.

  • Most food processing companies still rely on manual data entry of production results and ingredient usage; despite massive investments in ERP systems. Vigilistics software collects accurate and auditable production data in "ready to use" form. Two of the seven early adopters of Vigilistics have automated the input to their ERP system, thus eliminating operator entry and improving information at the enterprise level.