Icicle ERP Supplier Management Software Feature Overview
Integrated Supplier Relationship Management Systems to Cover All the Bases
Supplier management is a critical ingredient for safeguarding product quality and protecting brand reputation. Food and beverage manufacturers rely on a vast network of suppliers to produce and distribute their products. Maintaining a strong relationship with these suppliers is essential to ensuring a smooth and efficient supply chain.
When it comes to supplier management, Icicle has you covered. Our supplier management software automates and manages the entire process for you. From electronic vendor assessments to automated third-party certification renewal notifications, our software does it all. This not only saves you time but also minimizes the chances of any product threats or vulnerabilities from suppliers.
Clients who manage a large number of vendors stand to benefit the most from our supplier management software, which builds the capacity of your procurement team, delivers better insights into your business, and streamlines workflows so your staff can maintain excellent supplier relationships and plan for the future.
Comprehensive Supplier Management for Food Production
Food production is a challenging and constantly evolving business, and Icicle’s supplier management features are designed to meet and anticipate the specific needs of the industry. Our centralized, data-driven system simplifies vendor management, helping you stay organized and efficient while boosting product safety and quality.
Key Benefits
- Streamlines the entire supplier management process
- Centralizes vendor assessments to reduce the chances of product threats or vulnerabilities
- Keeps you organized and on top of vendor certifications
- Helps you stay compliant with industry regulations
- Improves your overall procurement efficiency
- Enhances your brand reputation
- Provides peace of mind knowing that your supply chain is running smoothly
Supplier Management Features
Icicle’s supplier management features are designed to help food producers navigate an increasingly complex supply chain environment to overcome unpredictable challenges, as well as provide much needed agility to meet customer demands. These features include the following:
Customize Supplier Definitions and Certification Record Types
Customization options for supplier definitions and certification record types help you define the specific information you want to collect from your suppliers and track their compliance with your company’s quality standards. Icicle’s supplier management software makes it easy to manage large numbers of vendors consistently so you can maintain the highest safety and quality standards for your customers.
Keep Centralized Supplier Certification Records
Certification records are centralized for easy access and tracking, ensuring that suppliers meet certification requirements. This allows you to quickly and easily verify a supplier’s compliance status with your company’s quality standards. Icicle Technologies also offers an optional third-party certification scanning feature that helps you identify any potential compliance issues with your suppliers.
Monitor Supplier Quality, Cost, Delivery, and Risk Potential
An optimal supplier management system should track supplier quality, cost, delivery, and risk potential, so you can better understand how each supplier is affecting your business. This information can help you make more informed decisions about which suppliers to work with and how best to manage them. Icicle’s integrated approach to supplier management trends this information and factors them into smart purchasing suggestions, allowing you to further optimize production uptime and operating costs.
Schedule Tasks and Reminders for Certification Renewals
Icicle’s built-in task scheduling features helps you keep track of all the activities that need to be performed in connection with vendor management, such as renewal reminders and third-party certification due dates. Recurring supplier assessments can also be scheduled to ensure records are always current. This ensures that nothing falls through the cracks and that all supplier management tasks are taken care of on time.
Automate Supplier Management Best Practices
Automating your supplier management practices can save you time and money. Icicle ERP automates a number of common tasks, such as renewal reminders and third-party certification due dates to help you to simplify and streamline the entire process. Staff follow through standard operating procedures for procurement seamlessly to ensure that only the most reliable and qualified suppliers are leveraged each and every time.
Simplify Supplier Assessments to Identify Bioterrorism and Food Fraud Risks
The consequences of bioterrorism and the specter of food fraud loom large over the food production industry. Icicle Technologies’ software provides an easy way to simplify supplier assessments in order to help identify these risks. By automating supplier assessments and scheduling regular reviews, you can quickly and easily identify any potential threats and vulnerabilities.
Meet and Exceed Supplier Management Expectations
Regulatory compliance is critical for any business, and the food production industry is no exception. Food manufacturers and suppliers are required to adhere to a range of laws and standards in order to do business.
For example, foreign suppliers in the US must comply with the Foreign Supplier Verification Program before their products can be imported into the country. In Canada, some suppliers obtain certification through the Supplier Food Safety Assurance Program, which is meant to ensure that all food sold in Canada is safe for consumption.
Icicle’s Supplier Management software helps you keep track of your suppliers’ certification and audit requirements to ensure your business stays compliant with all relevant industry regulations.
Threat and Vulnerability Assessments
Threat and vulnerability assessments are an important part of any supplier management process. Issues such as food fraud are widespread, and geopolitical realities continue to disrupt the supply chain. This makes it essential for food companies to be aware of and carefully monitor any potential problems related to their suppliers.
Icicle helps you quickly and easily identify potential supplier threats and vulnerabilities, allowing you to make informed decisions to safeguard your supply chain.
SFCA Supplier Food Safety Assurance Program
A Supplier Food Safety Assurance Program (SFSAP) is often required for food businesses in Canada as part of their PCP (Preventative Control Plan), helping ensure the safety of the food supply chain.
Our supplier management software helps you easily achieve and maintain compliance with the Safe Food for Canadians Act by enabling the six main elements: defining product specifications, developing and implementing criteria for suppliers, managing supplier agreements, maintaining a list of suitable suppliers to minimize production disruptions, ensuring procedures are verified annually, and managing all aspects of supplier relationships.
US FDA Foreign Supplier Verification Programs (FSVP)
Food importers in the United States must comply with the US FDA Foreign Supplier Verification Programs (FSVP) under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), which requires FSVP importers to verify that the food they import meets US safety standards.
Icicle simplifies and streamlines FSVP compliance so companies anywhere in the world can seamlessly maintain certifications and customer relationships at the highest standards. Our supplier management software helps you easily manage supplier data and certifications, perform hazard analyses, evaluate vendor risks based on relevant data, confidently take corrective actions if needed, conduct regular reviews, and stay on top of any changes to regulations so that you never experience any disruptions to sales or production.
Third-party Supplier Assurance Audits
Aside from certified audits, many businesses also require third-party assurance audits. Third-party supplier assurance audits are an important part of any quality management system because they provide an independent assessment of supplier performance. Icicle Technologies’ supplier management software helps you manage and track supplier audit data easily and based upon industry best practices.
Supplier Management Resources
Here are some supplier management resources that will help you to further improve your operations.
Overcoming Supply Chain Disruptions with Automation
Whether it’s war, disaster, or disease, food businesses around the world are struggling to navigate supply chain disruptions. This article looks at the power of automated supplier management and inventory management to help companies of all sizes keep production going smoothly and get ahead of problems with a data-driven approach rooted in Icicle’s unified production management system.
Boosting Quality and Safety at an Allergen-Free Facility
FreeYumm, a local, allergen-free snack company, was looking to implement a top-notch traceability system when they joined the Icicle community and realized that automated supplier management was just what they needed to improve their operations and grow their business. Check out FreeYumm’s case study to learn how they maintain the highest industry standards with Icicle.
Supplier Management Practices & Procedures
Education is critical in any field, and supplier management is no exception. See a selection of resources from the Icicle team below that will help you to learn about and improve your supplier management practices and procedures:
Prevent Food Fraud Nightmares
Food fraud is an ever-growing problem, and it can have serious consequences for businesses. This resource explains how you can leverage award-winning automation technology to implement systematic procedures to combat fraud, all in compliance with industry standards and regulatory requirements.
The Ultimate Food Supplier Audit Checklist
Auditing your suppliers ensures that everything is in order and standards are being followed. Request access to Icicle’s free supplier checklist, a resource developed with food safety consultants to guide you through a comprehensive and accurate supplier audit.
From the Icicle Blog
How Plant-Based Yoggu! Foods Went National and Grew 28% in Under a Year
A local processor of clean-label, vegan yogurt based here in BC, the Yoggu! team has steadily built momentum as they expanded their distribution nationally and opened a new 12,500 sq. ft. facility last year. They knew they needed the right food production management software to power the next stage of their growth.
Icicle ERP Wins AgTech Breakthrough Award!
The Icicle team is happy to share that our food manufacturing software Icicle ERP just won another AgTech Breakthrough award, this time for Overall Post Harvest Company of the Year! We especially appreciate this recognition from AgTech Breakthrough because it aligns with our core mission of providing real solutions to critical problems facing the food […]
Introducing Icicle’s Allergen Database Plus More Ways to Track Sales Performance
The latest batch of new features from Icicle ERP users – which covers April through June 2023 – boosts food safety and quality assurance standards with the new Icicle Allergen Database, trending for inspection results and scores, and help text for QC checks to make sure they are completed correctly. We’ve also focused on enhancing […]