ABS NEWS MAY 2023
Where to meet ABS during the coming period?
The World Seed Congress in Cape Town is around the corner!
In two weeks, we can all meet again. To schedule an appointment with us you can use the link: schedule-an-appointment-at-the-ISF-5-6-7-june
We look forward to seeing you in Cape Town! Ineke Leidelmeijer and Dorien van Engelenburg
ABS, helping you grow!
Evanthia up and running with ABS Seed
Evanthia is a Dutch ornamental flower breeder and grower of young tropical plants, trading in plants, cuttings, tissue culture and seeds, but mostly seeds. Evanthia is a relatively new company that started in 2013. Their goal is to have a quick service, good and easy to reach channels and strong availability.
Evanthia sells their own developed and produced varieties as well as purchased seeds. Main products are Sunflowers, Antirrhinum, Celosia, Ornamental Brassica, Matthiola, Tanacetum and Lisianthus. Product managers are responsible for the lifecycle of the products and this lifecycle including parent lines, productions and samples is tracked in ABS.
Raymond Vis started as a customer service employee, but is currently the application manager of ABS for Evanthia. He is focusing on using ABS as a local platform for information and data. This makes it easier to access and modify data, while at the same time ensuring in data entry, that the input rules made in ABS are followed. The advantage is that information is not lingering around in mailboxes or file storage folders, which creates version issues. Next to that it creates the possibility to automate workflows, making it easier and faster to process sales orders and internal assignments.
In 2015 Evanthia decided to use ABS Seed as their ERP solution. Before they were using an ERP, which is designed with a focus on growing plants. Evanthia had their “go-live” moment with ABS in October 2016. The first year with ABS was a challenge. For instance, because an order type in ABS was chosen, which created a lot of backorders. Today the order type was changed: the delivery was disconnected from the order and this works much better. Evanthia has now started using the price system in ABS Seed, to create uniformity in pricing and automate data entry of prices in sales orders. Next to that the focus currently is on registering seed productions, trials and product information.
Compared to the ERP they used before ABS gives a clearer view on the status of the order. Also, the tracking and tracing of seeds is available in one screen in ABS, the “root tree”. A disadvantage is that ABS is very strict and blocks the user quickly, but it is clear this is to prevent failures and secure valid data-entry.
A great thing about ABS is that the development of new functionalities is easy and quick. ABS consultants like to work together with their customers and help them to get a good solution. With the release of a new version of ABS every 9 weeks, updates are relatively quick deployed.
ABS Seed improvements
As a professional software company ABS is constantly improving our software’s.
If you want to work more efficient with less errors and you want to learn about the global proven solution ABS, click this link: ABS helping you grow
ABS has developed new apps for in the warehouse and we constantly create new features to improve your business processes. And that is not all, we also work on the look and feel of ABS!
Online inventory and processing apps for ABS Seed
The inventory and processing apps are used in your warehouse and processing facility to register various of your in-house activities. All apps control its specific functionality in a workflow and can be used in combination with native functionalities on your device as the camera, the barcode and infrared readers. Your devices are used on-line and are linked via WIFI to the network in your warehouse and processing facilities.
If you want to know more about the apps, click here for the app brochure.
Tiles in main menu of ABS Seed
As a new interface improvement in ABS Seed, we have created the option that each user can add tiles for certain programs to their main menu screen. These tiles can be used to start a program directly, instead of navigating through the menu of ABS Seed. This makes it much easier to start a program which is frequently used.
Set up your own interface in ABS Seed
ABS Seed is an excellent database ERP software and covers all processes for a seed company. It offers you a lot of data, but sometimes you do not want to see all the available data. In the latest versions of ABS, you have even more options to set up you own screen.
Just use the right mouse button menu to modify your screen, so your most used columns can be added, and less used columns can be removed from your actual program. It is now easier because the columns you want to be displayed in a program can be selected from a list, see the screen-print below.
For more information on ABS Seed, check ABS Seed
ABS Production for Takii Europe B.V.
Takii Europe B.V. is the European subsidiary of Takii Seed in Kyoto, Japan. In Europe Takii is operating several breeding stations in the Netherlands, France, Spain, Hungary and Turkey and a sales office in Spain, employing approx. 175 people. From the European headquarters the markets are served in the EMEA region. Takii Europe is a company active both in vegetable and flower seed. The main crops in vegetables are Onion, Brassica and Rootstocks. In flowers seed they are known for their Helianthus, Viola, Eustoma and Canna, beside these main crops they are active in a wide range of home gardening varieties, sold under the Sahin brand. Many of Takii’s varieties are bred and produced by Takii Seed worldwide. The Sahin home gardening portfolio is bred and produced by Takii Europe.
In 2021 Takii Europe was present at the Seed Meets Technology show in Zwaagdijk. During the show ABS gave a lecture presenting ABS’ new software solution ABS Production. ABS Production is a web-based software for mid-sized and small seed production companies to keep track of their seed productions. Yukihiro Saito, Production Manager, Pascal Claes, Head of Supply Chain and Andi Fenyvesi, Business Analyst, came to visit ABS. They directly understood the advantages and flexibility of the ABS Production software.
“We were from the begin impressed by the highly configurable nature of the software. Basically, all the parameters we require can be fairly easy created and with some assistance of the ABS consultant many views can be created. As ABS Production is a SAAS software there is no need for installation on computers” Pascal says.
Some years ago, Takii Europe implemented an ERP system (Infor M3). Now, they were looking for a versatile bold-on application capable of facilitating their specific needs for managing their seed production activities, for which the ERP system isn’t suitable. ABS Production turned out to offer that solution.
ABS Production was implemented between August 2022 and March 2023. First, their processes were mapped by Takii Europe and they identified their key requirements. These were used for the software configuration.
At the moment eight users are active. The Master Data Specialist takes care of keeping the ABS Production master data in sync with Infor M3. There are two people responsible for administrative tasks, three Seed Production Specialists and two operators. ABS Production facilitates Takii Europe in managing their seed production activities with both domestic and international growers, including field inspection. After receipt of the seed, threshing and cleaning is managed with ABS Production and last but not least ABS Production supplies the data for payment to our growers.
We asked Pascal Claes for his opinion on ABS Production until today. Pascal indicates: “We had to adapt our way of working a little bit to the ABS Production basic configuration. Also, some screen layouts we seem to use other than intended. We hope that these can be modified in the future. So far, we have found for all issues a workable solution. As with SAAS solutions some changes may take a little longer to be released since they have impact on all users – but we have the impression that our feedback is being used. Since this is our first year with ABS Production, we are mainly focussed on our current implementation.”
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