Seo Eng Joo Frozen Foods scales with Microsoft Dynamics NAV

Source: SEJ's Facebook page.

Microsoft Singapore has announced that one of Singapore’s biggest food distribution companies, Seo Eng Joo Frozen Food (SEJ), has successfully migrated to Microsoft Dynamics NAV to support its growth plans.

SEJ, a supply chain management (SCM) cold chain company in Singapore, started off as a small family business. Today it is targeting a tenfold increase in output in the next three to five years.

SEJ moves 15,000 pallets of frozen foods, 14,000 pallets of dry goods, and 1,000 pallets of chilled foods to more than 1,000 food and retail establishments daily. Aside from fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) distribution, the company also covers trading, import and export, as well as supply chain management services as part of their core business. Given that optimising supply chain management and operation is crucial to the business, SEJ had deployed an enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform to ensure timeliness for the movement of its goods.

For almost two decades, the company relied on the ERP platform which was highly customised for its business operation needs. However, SEJ’s management recently realised that the rigid nature of the legacy ERP was a limiting factor in meeting their expansion goals.

“Our company’s expertise is in FMCG, but we have found IT to be a big challenge,” said Charlie Seo, General Manager, SEJ. “When the company’s management launched our roadmap for long-term growth, we sought to improve our enterprise planning capabilities with a capable and trustworthy partner who could see us through our journey.”

SEJ’s management then embarked on a 12-month selection process for a new system as the legacy ERP was no longer able to meet their expansion needs. Microsoft Dynamics NAV, a global ERP application for growing companies, was selected for its high flexibility and scalability, as well as the no-compromise on reliability which is very critical for the industry that SEJ operated in. 

“In our industry, drop and pick accuracy are very important considerations,” said Seo. “When a customer orders, and when we make deliveries, we want to be 100% sure that we are delivering the correct goods at the right time.” The solution had to ensure that different elements such as warehousing, deliveries, storage, inventory and other functions worked well together.

With the deployment, SEJ is now primed to take their vision further through the utilisation of cutting-edge supply chain management technologies that provide a flexible and scalable path to growth: 

Improved inventory control

SEJ now enjoys improved communication across finance, inventory control functions and warehousing functions as a result of improved integration between modules. For example, creation of sales orders automatically generates picking instructions for the warehouse, and confirmation done by warehouse staff automatically posts the shipment. The communication process is streamlined, and previous manual processes are now automated, which has resulted in a 15% reduction in administrative time for the inventory control team. The deployment has also helped reduce the likelihood of human error in transactions and processes.

Better operational efficiency

SEJ has gained greater operational efficiency, both in the processes and the checks-and-balances employed throughout. By facilitating the picking process, Microsoft Dynamics NAV has helped ensure that stocks with earlier expiry dates move out of warehouse sooner than others, driving overall efficiency and reducing turnaround time.

Enhanced visibility

The dimension feature of Microsoft Dynamics NAV allows SEJ’s management team to analyse profits by market segments, geographic zones and brands. Not only has SEJ become more efficient in the way they handle information, the company’s database is now more comprehensive which has allows them to track more metrics and generate more detailed reports. This has provided them faster decision-making in an industry where delayed results in higher perishable wastage. 

Enabling innovation and scalability
“When we started understanding the capabilities of Dynamics NAV, we also began to explore more possibilities for our business,” said Seo, noting that SEJ can for instance now implement advanced inventory management technologies such as wireless inventory tagging through RFID. 

“We are no longer restricted by the ERP solution. Working with a good partner in building on Microsoft Dynamics NAV, the opportunity to automate certain processes is unlimited. Some of the things we never even thought about before are now possible.”

In December 2014 SEJ was also able to roll out a new business entity to handle sales in a new market segment within a short timeframe. It was able to set up the system quickly to support the new business, and scale up quickly enough to handle the increased volume of transactions. With the new system removing physical infrastructure constraints, the company expects to achieve a 300% growth in customer acquisition.

SEJ also plans to integrate more modules and features into the deployment, including facial recognition technology as well as automating communications with, and from, customers which will help to reduce errors arising from miscommunication and human errors in transactions and processes.

“We continue to help our customers reinvent productivity through our existing solutions and integrated offerings; for example, a unified productivity experience with Office 365 and Microsoft Dynamics NAV, where customers can bring their email, calendar and files together with data, reports and business management software,” said Ngiam Foong Chee, Director, Marketing & Operations, Microsoft Singapore. “We are pleased to see more of our customers like Seo Eng Joo being empowered to drive their business forward with the flexibility and agility that Microsoft offers today.”