AT A GLANCE
- COMPANY: Keogh’s Crisps
- ESTABLISHED: 2011
- LOCATION: North Co. Dublin, Ireland
- FOOD SECTOR: Freshly pre-packaged premium snack foods
- MARKET: Ireland, UK and International (18 countries + USA)
- PRODUCTS: Potato Crisps and Popcorn
- NO. OF EMPLOYEES: 108
OVERVIEW
In 2011, the Keogh family launched their new brand, Keogh’s Crisps despite the turmoil in the Irish Economy at that time. ‘Keogh’s – grown with love in Ireland‘ caught on quickly and by 2019, featured in the top 100 Irish consumer listed brands.
The meteoric rise of their premium crisp brand quickly re-defined their potato business. While that brought many awards and accolades, it also presented new challenges that required serious business intelligence to deliver tight stock, quality, and financial control. The Keogh’s team needed razor-sharp insights across key processes which would underpin the company’s plans for more profitable growth.
Keogh’s snack products include a wide range of crisps and popcorn flavours.
INTRODUCTION
Building a proGRESSIVE FOOD business for FUTURE generations
The Keogh family have been farming in North County Dublin for over 200 years. The idea for Keogh’s Crisps was planted against the backdrop of falling potato consumption during the Celtic Tiger when convenience foods such as rice, pasta and pizza grew increasingly popular.
In 2008, Tom Keogh, MD, began a mission to find new ways to create value-added products from their ready supply of freshly grown potatoes. After significant research and collaboration with companies at home and abroad, Tom Keogh’s forward-thinking approach led to a well-informed progressive decision in 2011 that would deliver a successful future for Keogh’s Farm. The goal was to build a new brand, Keogh’s Crisps, as the producer of the best Irish premium crisps – the likes of which you’ve never tasted before.
CRUNCH TIME FOR KEOGH’S CRISPS
THE CHALLENGE
Planning, Production, Pricing, Promotions & Profitability
By 2018, Keogh’s Crisps’ existing financial and production systems were failing to meet the requirements of their business expansion plans and global ambitions. There were hundreds of product SKUs (stock keeping units) requiring specific seasoning and packaging that became increasingly difficult to manage and determine actual costs and profits. Their paper-based systems lacked transparency especially for production and despatch personnel who had limited stock visibility to plan, purchase, produce and pack effectively.
The financial controller faced difficult challenges when reporting on management accounts, customer profit & loss reports and annual projections. KPI queries from management regularly became deep dives into paperwork and excel sheets for answers about stock levels, production yields and delivery cost per kg. It was becoming unworkable and a stopping block to Keogh’s quest for international growth.
FROM CROP TO CRISP
THE SOLUTION
A trusted partnership to support long-term growth
Keogh’s Crisps sought to find a trustworthy ERP partner with industry-specific knowledge to join them on their digital transformation journey, which led them to DIOMAC. It was important that DIOMAC offered more than just the technical expertise and experience to ensure successful implementation. Keogh’s Crisps needed an expert multidisciplinary team who understood their strategy for growth and shared their vision to realise their future business aspirations.
In 2019, Keogh’s Crisps implemented DIOMAC Premium integrating seamless factory functionality with touchscreen, weighing, labelling and mobile scanning technology. There was a steep learning curve to manage change and establish Keogh’s core DIOMAC Project team with representatives from Production, Finance and Quality. Within a year, Keogh’s Crisps had a full food production and financial system empowering a fully connected team to make insightful decisions in real-time across all key business processes. Over the next two years, the relationship between the two companies flourished. Working together, the functionality of their ERP system was expanded to include Advanced Quality Management and Machine Data Capture which completed this key phase of their digital transformation journey.
DIOMAC DELIVERED
A complete ERP Solution for Production, Quality, Traceability, Labelling, Accounting and Reporting
- One reliable, fully integrated system connecting people and processes.
- Integrated weighing, labelling and mobile warehouse scanning technology.
- Flexible and dynamic sales forecasting.
- Accurate recording and reporting of key ingredients consumption.
- Up to the minute information on production volumes and yields.
- Real-time management of stock by location, deliveries and stocktakes.
- Enhanced procurement and supplier payments control.
- Instantaneous digital supply chain traceability map.
- Advanced Quality Module for paperless quality control.
- Clear visibility of business profits by customer and product.
- Fully granular monthly accounts and management information pack.
THE BENEFITS
DIOMAC ERP – A Single Source of Truth
Keogh’s Crisps now have an all-encompassing and company-wide information system that captures and reflects reality. DIOMAC’s integrated barcode scanning, electronic weighing and dynamic labelling software feeds information in real-time to the entire team providing full visibility of raw material and finished good stocks essential for effective planning. Actual costs are determined precisely on an individual batch basis and immediately update financial ledgers.
In addition, key quality and traceability information essential for a food factory, together with purchasing, production, sales and financial data from a single trusted source, empower the Keogh’s team to make timely, accurate and effective decisions.
KEOGH’S GAINS
Key benefits gained after partnering with DIOMAC
- Reliable reports keeping management meetings focused and on track.
- Multi-dimensional view of the business in real-time.
- Comprehensive control of user/group access.
- Electronic purchase approval process for supplier orders and payments with user authorisation limits.
- Clear Insights into seasonal variations of raw materials.
- Tight control of production yields, weight give-away and waste.
- Flexible and adaptable production planning with works orders and master bill of materials.
- Paperless production & quality systems.
- Automated EDI orders and invoices.
- Management of retailer promotion cycles, discounts and samples.
- Live monitoring of production equipment with continuous recording of data such as uptime, runtime, pause time, fault time, batch times, throughput, temperatures, usage, waste, targets v actuals.
- Finished goods production planning combining current stock, open sales orders and latest rolling sales forecasts.
- Transformation of BRC and customer audit compliance process.
- Instant reporting and analysis of digital quality control checks.
THE RESULTS
Reaping the Rewards
Today, Keogh’s DIOMAC team are experts in operating DIOMAC’s ERP system. They are fully in control of managing the constant growth and evolution of the business. Data is rapidly collected in real-time from a wide variety of sources. Configured reports and dashboards only show metrics that matter and provide insights into business challenges that reflect reality. Key personnel regularly monitor performance, analyse data, and make continuous improvements accordingly. New equipment monitoring and reporting software has resulted in a 51% reduction in the level of product over-seasoning and a 2% reduction in the amount of finished bag weight give-away. Employee job satisfaction has increased at least two-fold due to cross-functional team communication and clearly defined processes. Management now has less stress and more time to concentrate on making business decisions that are helping to drive Keogh’s Crisps upwards.
In 2022, Keogh’s Crisps won the Irish Exporters Association’s Food and Drink Exporter of the Year Award and were crowned overall Exporter of the Year. The Keogh’s DIOMAC project team won the Company Bright Spark Award and were also finalists in the Fingal Chamber Business Awards, a fitting tribute to their hard work and to the cohesive efforts of the entire Keogh’s team… True Story!
CONTACT US
DIOMAC empowers you to grow your business with a fully connected team that achieves superior performance levels with instant product traceability and total visibility of operational performance and profitability.
KEOGH’s CASE STUDY PDF
Find out how DIOMAC ERP helps Keogh’s to grow their business.
