
Icicle ERP Inventory Management Software Feature Overview
Automate Inventory Control Across All Inventory Locations and Facilities
Inventory management is an essential part of ensuring high quality, efficient production for any food or beverage manufacturer. Icicle ERP offers a comprehensive inventory management system that enables both big picture and granular insights and planning, helping you track the flow of inventory while building seamless production processes with less waste.
Icicle ERP transforms warehouse operations with advanced scanner technologies that modernize tasks, reduce human error, and improve workflows overall. GS1-compliant barcodes, which Icicle can generate on the spot, integrate into logistics operations to provide complete, end-to-end traceability from receiving to shipping (and beyond). Smart suggestions guide your staff to use ingredients in the order that optimizes product quality and shelf life, just one aspect of our automated expiration management features.
Icicle ERP’s intelligent, proprietary system offers automation capabilities that take inventory management to the next level, improving your operations across the board. Smart purchasing suggestions help your procurement team order ingredients and materials according to production and sales analytics, including forecasts, sales orders, and scheduled production, while inventory data is automatically pulled into food safety, traceability, and quality documentation so you are always up-to-date and ready for an audit or inspection.
Icicle’s Inventory Management software allows for a greater degree of inventory control and more precise inventory planning for your business.
Precision Solutions for Large-Scale Inventory Management
Icicle ERP’s Inventory Management system is a comprehensive solution to improve the efficiency and accuracy of inventory management across all locations and facilities. This software allows businesses to streamline operations and ensure that all requirements are met. Food manufacturers and suppliers alike will benefit from our precision inventory management tools.
Key Benefits
- Automate inventory control across all inventory locations and facilities
- Boost logistics and traceability capabilities with GS1-compliant barcodes
- Build customer trust with robust allergen control tools
- Maximize shelf life and reduce waste with automated expiration management features
- Optimize inventory levels with purchasing suggestions
- Leverage inventory analytics to optimize production
- Manage shipping and receiving to meet your needs
Inventory Management Features
Inventory management is indeed a critical piece of any business, but especially for food companies. The right inventory management system can help to ensure the quality, efficient production, and reduced waste of food products. Icicle ERP offers a comprehensive inventory management system that allows users to reap the following benefits:
Account for Every Gram of Product Inventory
The essence of good inventory management is knowing not only how much of each product you have, but also where it is. With GS1 barcode support, Icicle’s inventory tracking system makes it easy to manage inventory across multiple locations and even facilities, so warehouse management and production can work efficiently to meet targets and avoid inventory surplus.
Icicle’s global inventory view allows businesses to track and trace items by lot code, expiration date, and more. With Icicle’s Inventory Management system, you’re not just controlling your inventory, you’re accounting for every gram of product. Detailed inventory history means that your traceability chain is secured to ensure product safety and quality, as well as prevent food fraud.
Boost Logistics and Traceability with GS1 Barcodes
Warehouse workflows can be improved dramatically with paperless scanners to facilitate easy and efficient racking and picking. With Icicle’s Inventory Management system, staff can simply scan products and ingredients directly into the system, eliminating the need for manual data entry and reducing the risk of human error.
Icicle makes it easy to implement GS1-compliant barcodes and inventory scanning into your daily warehouse operations, creating a seamless connection between granular inventory data and complete, end-to-end traceability compliance.
Control Allergens and Prevent Recalls
Food product recalls can be incredibly costly and damaging to a company’s reputation. Icicle’s Inventory Management system features built-in controls for the highest levels of food safety compliance, including allergen controls that prevent cross-contamination. The system allows for detailed tracking of ingredients from receiving through production to shipping so food manufacturers can quickly and easily identify the source of any potential problem.
In case of an unavoidable incident or recall, Icicle will leverage inventory and traceability data to help you rapidly determine the exact source and location of any contaminated products, down to the lot code level, enabling precise and effective corrective actions.
Automate FIFO Asset Management for Production and Picking
Icicle’s Inventory Management system automates FIFO asset management for production and picking. With GS1-compliant barcodes, Icicle draws manufacturing data from ingredients to calculate best-before dates and other expiration information that affect product quality and safety.
Warehouse staff are then guided to pick ingredients from inventory in FIFO (first-in-first-out) order so you can minimize manufacturing waste and lost profit from stale inventory while maximizing shelf life and product quality.
Simplify Inventory Planning with Purchasing Suggestions
Icicle’s Inventory Management system enables accurate and sustainable inventory planning and inventory purchasing with purchasing suggestions. Drawing directly from your company’s sales data and production forecasts, Icicle automatically generates purchasing suggestions for your procurement team in order to optimize inventory levels and reduce waste.
Built with Icicle’s advanced, proprietary automation capabilities, purchasing suggestions prevent inventory waste and storage inefficiencies that drain profits and impede sustainable growth. At the same time, automated Inventory Management enables you to look beyond just-in-time inventory strategies and build in contingency plans during supply chain disruptions, so you can always meet production targets.
Enable Lean Inventory Management with Real-Time Inventory Reconciliation Costing
Icicle’s production management features include advanced costing analytics that help food manufacturers make informed decisions during any stage of business growth. Using actual production costing at the lot code level, Icicle can calculate real costs based on production to help users monitor costs in real-time, even batch to batch.
That kind of data analytics extends to inventory as well: at any time, you can use Icicle’s cloud-based inventory management system to track your inventory value and identify opportunities to boost efficiency, as well as set inventory levels to ensure space (another valuable resource) is not wasted either.
Optimize Shipping and Receiving Schedules to Stay On-Track
Shipping Notices extend Icicle’s powerful inventory management tools to help logistics staff plan for incoming and outgoing shipments, even during supply chain or labour disruptions that put your sales at risk. Especially for products or ingredients that require temperature controls, inefficient shipping and receiving operations can carry enormous costs in terms of product quality and manufacturing productivity.
Shipping Notices and other Icicle ERP inventory management features enable real-time communication between purchasing, sales, and shipping teams via a centralized, digital record with all the information needed to effectively manage incoming and outgoing inventory and schedule warehouse staff according to need.
Benefits of ERP Inventory Management Systems
The problem with many inventory management systems is that they are designed for a single business purpose. This can make them difficult to use and can limit their functionality.
Icicle ERP’s Inventory Management system, on the other hand, is designed for use by a variety of businesses, making it easier to learn and more versatile in terms of functionality. Our software can also be tailored to meet the specific needs of your business.
Icicle ERP’s Inventory Management system offers a number of benefits that go beyond basic inventory tracking. These benefits include:
Sustainable Growth with Balanced Supply and Demand
Icicle ERP’s Inventory Management system helps businesses balance supply and demand, ensuring that food manufacturers not only meet customer demand, but also avoid costly ingredient surpluses and manage production for sustainable growth.
By providing smart suggestions based on sales data and predicted future demand for products, the forecast and planning feature allows businesses to respond effectively to fluctuations in supply and demand, creating production schedules that optimize production.
Automated Data Management and Insights
Icicle ERP’s Inventory Management system integrates with production forecasts and sales data to offer tailored planning suggestions. These forecasting and planning features, which are accessible through Icicle’s easy-to-use dashboards, help food and beverage manufacturers stay ahead of supply chain disruptions, leverage quality data for business development and growth, and maintain customer relationships by ensuring production targets are met.
Icicle’s analytics and forecasting tools, which operate based on real-time data from inventory and production, provide decision-makers with the information they need to identify and address problems and optimize productivity.
Complete Warehouse Management Integration
Warehouses can be difficult to manage, especially for company with high-volume logistics operations involving many products or inventory locations. With its detailed tracking capabilities, Icicle ERP’s Inventory Management system turbocharges warehouse management for food processors and all food businesses.
Businesses with large amounts of inventory spread over many locations will find that our software makes it easy to pinpoint the precise amounts and locations of their inventory. Our Inventory Management software allows for detailed tracking across all locations and facilities, bringing together all aspects of your operations in a single secure, centralized system for better communication.
Global End-to-End Traceability Compliance
Inventory management is inseparable from modern food safety and traceability regulatory requirements, which demand end-to-end traceability systems that can track and trace all inventory “one step forward, one step back” in the supply chain.
Icicle ERP’s Inventory Management system is designed to integrate seamlessly with automated traceability and food safety systems, so your staff can generate and maintain documentation as part of their daily tasks, quickly and easily. Icicle’s inventory tracking system and automation capabilities enable food manufacturers to capture enormous amounts of reliable traceability data with no additional cost or labour. With these solutions in place, you can meet compliance requirements for customers, regulators, and export markets with ease.
Waste-Free Food and Beverage Manufacturing
Food waste is a critical problem for the planet and for the food industry, which throws away tens of millions of dollars every year in avoidable food loss during and after production. Icicle ERP uses automation technology to optimize ingredient and material consumption, so ingredients and materials are used at the right time.
Icicle’s maintenance management tools also help you optimize resource and energy consumption in general, enabling food manufacturers to set specifications and create procedures that meet sustainability and efficiency goals for their entire operations. Users can take advantage of analytics and dashboards to identify and address operational inefficiencies that steal from your bottom line, and easily generate documentation for inspectors and auditors to verify results.
Inventory Management Resources
Some inventory management resources that will help you to further improve your operations:
Icicle Automates Inventory Management Processes
Modern traceability requirements (including GFSI standards and US FDA regulations under FSMA) are no longer possible to meet with manual systems; food manufacturers must track thousands of data points (KDEs) throughout the supply chain and you need automation technology to do it. This article shows how GS1-compliant barcodes can combine the business need to track inventory efficiently with meeting regulatory requirements necessary for market access and customer trust.
GS1 barcodes have transformed the food industry by bridging traceability data with logistics, inventory control, sales and customer management, and food safety in one, unified system that can cover the whole supply chain. This relatively low-cost solution poses a crucial opportunity for companies looking for success and compliance in the notoriously thin-margin food industry.
Creating a Unified Warehouse Management System
Supply chain logistics and warehouse management are two major challenges for food and beverage manufacturers. Icicle ERP’s Inventory Management software integrates with all aspects of your operations to deliver a complete warehouse management solution that is flexible and responsive to the changing needs of your business.
Icicle’s powerful impact in terms of operational and inventory efficiency highlights the importance of data management for the modern food industry. Automation technology can streamline workflows and reduce the chances of human error, so that even highly complex or high-volume operations can be managed easily through any circumstance. This article follows Icicle’s capabilities across the food production journey, from receiving to shipping and beyond.
Effective Inventory Management Procedures
To maximize the efficiency of an inventory management system, it is important to follow effective inventory management procedures. Using Icicle ERP’s Inventory Management system makes it easy to manage inventory effectively.
Take a look at the following helpful resources for some tips about effective inventory management below:
Maximizing Margins with Inventory Management
Hitting the right balance between maximizing shelf life (and product quality) and minimizing inventory waste is a challenge – one that Icicle ERP’s automation features can solve. With production planning, logistics optimization, supplier management, automatic best-before dates, and more, food and beverage manufacturers use Icicle to maximize their margins and achieve sustainable growth.
Navigating Complex Production and Logistics Operations
The Chai Company has particularly complex production and logistics operations, with their small batch processing extending to five different inventory locations. This case study shows how the company used Icicle to streamline their processes while maintaining their commitment to quality, traditionally-produced chai products.
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