KRAFT FOOD COMPANY

INTRODUCTION

COMPANY’S HISTORY

According to Frank (2010), in 1903, there was a man named James Lewis Kraft who had

begun cheese delivery service at Chicago area after he had been eased out from a cheese

company at Buffalo. Every morning, he will buy cheese wholesale and resold it to the local

vendors in order to avoid the cheese melt or spoil. The business was successful and several of

his brothers who are known as Charles H., John H., Fred Walker and Norman had joined the

company named J.L Kraft & Bros. Co. in 1909 as permanent employees (MAC 2011). James

L. Kraft is a president of the company who had invented a revolutionary process in 1915.

This process helps to pasteurize the cheese, thus it would not spoiled easily and can be

transported long distances (NNDB 2009).

Fundamentally, according to Phillip (2010), in 1920, Kraft purchased a Canadian cheese

company and changed it to Kraft Cheese Company in 1924. Kraft Cheese Company had

obtained a lot of sales which enable J.L Kraft to expand the company into Germany,

Australia and Britain. During World War II, Kraft had supplied 4 million pounds of cheese to

Britain. It had showed that Kraft was a main food supplier at that time. In 1945, the Kraft

Cheese Company became Kraft Food Company (NNDB 2009).

COMPANY’S DESCRIPTION

Kraft Food Company’s headquarter had been located at Cheltenham, United Kingdom since

Kraft has a close connection with the rest of Europe. The manufacturing site had been

established at the Banbury as a global manufacturing base that will supply a variety type of

products worldwide in 155 countries including Malaysia, China and United State (Kraft Food

Inc. 2010). Kraft Food Company was having more than 100,000 diverse employees all over

the world. Currently, Kraft Food Company is a second largest food and beverage company in

the world after Nestle which has using CAPE warehouse management system to handle its

operation effectively and efficiently. Thus, it is not surprising why Kraft Food Company able

to offer delicious and wholesome foods to their consumers for more than 1 decade (MAC

2011).

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VISION, MISSION & GOAL

Kraft Food Company’s vision is to “make today delicious” whereas their mission is to

maintain good reputation as one of the world’s most loved and trusted food brand globally

(Kraft Food 2011). The objectives that guide the firms through their growth years are

“Customer would be always provided with delicious food everywhere. We will continuously

looking for fresh and unique ideas in order to enhance our workplace, our partnerships, our

communities and our world (Frank 2010).

TYPE OF PRODUCTS

Furthermore, according to Joel (2010), Kraft Food Company is popular with cheese and

dairy, snack foods and confectionary, beverage and convenient foods. However, Kraft Food

Company is basically focusing more on cheese and dairy products such as cottage cheese

and sour cream. Kraft produces a wide variety of natural cheese and American cheese

slices. Besides that, Kraft also been known as snack food brands especially cookies and

crackers. Some of popular snacks food offers by Kraft are Kraft cheese Nips, Wheat Thins

crackers, Corn Nuts and Garden Harvest toasted chips (Kraft Food 2011). Instead of that,

sweet and confectionary food brands produced by Kraft are Oreo cookies, Kraft Mayo with

olive oil, Jet-Puffed Marshmallows and Kraft salad dressings whereas for beverage and

convenient foods are Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, California Pizza Kitchen and DiGiorno

frozen pizzas, Yuban Coffee and Maxwell House (David 2009).

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CAPE WAREHOUSE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Besides that, Kraft Food Company is using CAPE warehouse management system.

According to Jason (2011), this warehouse management system helps to improve and develop

great automation for warehouse operations such as receiving, put-away, storage, pallet

tracking, and other transactions before shipped the products to the market.

Receiving

This CAPE system includes Integral Radio Frequency (RF) support to facilitate product

movement processes within the warehouse. After the goods have been unloaded, Motoman

robot which used by CAPE system to move the goods from unloading area to the receiving

dock will automatically check the shipment count and weight as well as the goods’ condition

in order to detect any damage goods (Reuters 2011). Then, it will send the report to the

warehouse management office and notify the depositor immediately if there are any

discrepancies.

Put-Away

After the receiving process is completed, the goods will be moved into warehouse storage

area. The goods will be moved from the receiving dock to the items location according to the

license numbers. The Motoman robot will scan the products’ barcode and move the products

to proper location, thus it will be easier for the later shipment (Reuters 2011). The goods’

movement will be recorded as to reflect the receipt of the items and its location in the

warehouse. Therefore, it can improve the warehouse productivity and reduce the errors in

managing the goods (Skuflow 2011).

Storage

The goods will be stored by the Motoman robot according to the goods’ popularity and unit

size. The popular and small size items will be located near the shipping area, thus the order

picker will travel a shorter distance and more items can be stored, therefore the space can be

fully utilize. After on-the-fly-palletizing of consistent size of cartons, the goods will be

located at there until customers need it (Skuflow 2011). Besides that, since CAPE system

generated the Motoman robot to store the goods, it can reduce number of personnel required

and improve the managerial control in providing sufficient inventory to the customers.

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Pallet Tracking

During pallet tracking process, the administrator will key in the license numbers into the

CAPE warehouse management system which allow the Motoman robot to pick the required

goods from the storage area and send the goods to the shipment area (CAPE system 2011).

CAPE system will mark the pick item; notify any irregularities before make any shipment to

the customers and will keep the data for later filing.

Furthermore, CAPE system is an international provider of supply chain technology which

able to optimize the flow of products. This system facilitates to expand the network to all

over the world, support the product line more effective and provide efficient customer service

in order to increase the market share and gain competitive advantage in a food and beverage

industry (CAPE system 2010).

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STRENGTH OF CAPE WMS

In addition, Wong (2011) claims that CAPE warehouse management system allows to reduce

inventory and carrying cost by speed up the movement of products from receiving dock until

make customer shipment. CAPE system helps the company to find solutions to maximize

products value by eliminating demurrage and detention charges. Besides that, the system will

be able to enhance RF processing or barcode system by minimizing the errors caused by

capturing wrong receipt number into the system. Thus, accurate record lies in deciding which

items to be counted and when the process incurred (Jason 2011).

Instead of that, Christopher (2010) states that CAPE warehouse management system allows

the warehouse manager to access critical information across all warehouse operation begins

at receiving dock until shipping. A wide variety of information such as storage location and

warehouse layout are needed for a supply chain to perform as anticipated (Jason 2011). Thus,

with a help from CAPE system, accurate, timely and accessible information can be obtained

which allow the warehouse manager to improve managerial control as well as enable cost-

efficient sharing of information between suppliers, intermediaries, logistics service providers

and customers (CAPE system 2010).

Instead, CAPE warehouse management system will provide real time inventory availability.

CAPE system will help the staffs to know whether the products are still available in a

warehouse or not (Jason 2011). If the product needs quick replenishment, CAPE system will

helps the employees regarding the location of a particular product from particular shelf as

when the computer validate the bin and picked up a product, the employees will be able to

differentiate either it was the right product or not by entering the quantity of products that

been required into the computer and it would directly updates the information on main server,

thus it can improved accuracy due to reduction of manual processing (CAPE system 2010).

Furthermore, Jenne (2010) contends that CAPE warehouse management system helps to

maximize the use of available warehouse location. Therefore, aisle space can be minimized

which can increase effective capacity. This will allow the products to be unloaded and stored

easily and enable the suppliers to take the products out. So, according to Jason (2011), there

will be no capacity wastage issues and increase the turnover of the products

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WEAKNESSES OF CAPE WMS

However, there are few weaknesses that had been identify in the usage of the CAPE system.

One of the weaknesses is the failure to track vendor process. Christina (2011) claims that this

failure happen as the software provides historically have been able to sell more system than

they can develop during any reasonable time frame. If the people who use the CAPE system

in their warehouse are not monitoring their CAPE system closely, then there are higher

possibilities that another system may be getting the grease. CAPE system is a very complex

system that needs expertise to handle the system as an ordinary staffs are not authorized to

handle it without any supervision (CAPE system 2010).

The following weakness are known as failure to develop a contingency or also known as the

backup plan. CAPE system also does not have the backup plan for all electronic copies of all

downloaded files, or backing up the system before start up and unable to create a stable

recovery start point Furthermore, this CAPE system could not be expected to be 100%

efficient on day ones (Jason 2011). The system will work as designed on the day as the CAPE

system start up, thus the system will be ignoring all the possible negative outcomes and also

will contribute to the costly error.

The following weakness of the CAPE system would be the lack of the CAPE system training.

Jenne (2010) states that a lot of companies believe that the software vendors pitch that

anyone can learn the system in 15 minutes and because of this theory, the company failed to

give more attention on the training part of the implementation plan. The company plays a

major part in contribution to this weakness to be occurred in the CAPE system. It is because

the company did not provide an effective and efficient training section to the users as well as

the company did not conduct any test on the users based on WMS operational knowledge

before system start-up (Jason 2011).

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SUGGESTIONS

Based on these weaknesses, there are some suggestions to overcome it in order to make the

system become more efficient. One of the suggestions is by employ a full time warehouse

manager who able to monitor and control the system as smoothen the operation process

(Jason 2011). Besides that, the warehouse manager should have a huge knowledge about

CAPE system, thus the manager will be able to detect any problems to the surface which they

can be dealt with it easier and quickly.

Furthermore, May (2010) contends that the data that been keep in the system should be up-to-

date and accurate as when the poor data was put into the system, a great warehouse

management system will produce lousy result which can slow down the manufacturing

process and cause to delay the delivering of finished goods to customers. In order words, the

warehouse process will be inefficient and lead to high warehouse cost. Instead, the CAPE

system should pay more attention towards the collection and updating all the products

characteristic data. Thus, the warehouse cost and quality of products stored in a warehouse

can be maintained (CAPE system 2010).

Besides that, Jenne (2010) claim that all the staffs should be briefing and training on how to

use the system in order to build their comfort level and have better understanding about the

system used. Thus, the warehouse operation process can be run as usual without having any

difficulties regarding to the system implementation. During final testing and start-up, users

must be tested on their WMS operational knowledge, and those who need it must get the

appropriate re-training. Generally, the best people to provide this training are other internal

users, outside parties, or vendor training personnel who are not programmers as claimed by

Jason (2011).

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CONCLUSION

As a conclusion, CAPE warehouse management system is a system that have been

recommended by most big companies that very particular in enhancing their logistics

operations especially for the company that involved in a food and beverage industry. CAPE

warehouse management system is a latest system that had been developed for helping the

company to improve their effectiveness in operating their warehouse operation. Therefore, all

the process which from receiving until shipping the products to the customers can be done on

time, thus enable the company to reduce the logistics cost while achieving customer’s

satisfaction.

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REFERENCES

CAPE system 2010, CAPE warehouse management system, viewed 6 March 2011,

<http://www.capesystems.com/

aboutus_packaging_software_customers_food_beverage.htm>.

CAPE system 2011, CAPE system pallet trucking, viewed 9 March 2011,

<http://www.capesystems.com/Pallet-Group.htm>.

Christina 2011, Weaknesses and disadvantage of Cape wms, viewed 7 March 2011,

<http://www.capesoftware.com/Docs/PLX.pdf>.

Christopher, JN 2010, Benefit of CAPE system, viewed 7 March 2011,

<http://www.capesystems.com/Warehouse-Management.htm>.

David, GS 2009, Kraft food’s products, viewed 7 March 2011,

<http://www.livestrong.com/article/63080-list-kraft-foods/>.

Frank, HF 2010, Introduction of Kraft Food Company, viewed 8 March 2011,

<http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~boehm/data/biographies/

1874_Kraft_James_Lewis_bio.html>.

Jason, HP 2011, Strength and weaknesses of CAPE system, viewed 7 March 2011,

<http://www.capesystems.com/index.htm>.

Jenne, MV 2010, CAPE system, viewed 9 March 2011,

<http://www.capesystems.com/Products.htm>.

Joel, DR 2010, List of Kraft products, viewed 9 March 2011,

<http://www.livestrong.com/article/63080-list-kraft-foods/>.

Kraft Food Inc. 2010, Location of Kraft Food Company, viewed 5 March 2011,

<http://www.hoovers.com/company/Kraft_Foods_Inc/rfyysti-1.html>.

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Kraft Food 2011, Kraft Food Company’s vision and mission, viewed 6 March 2011,

<http://www.promisecommunities.com/casestudies/PC_Kraft_CaseStudy.pdf>.

MAC 2011, Kraft Food Company’s background, viewed 6 March 2011,

< http://homepage.mac.com/allanmcnyc/textpdfs/kraftfoods.pdf >.

May, SR 2010, Weaknesses of CAPE WMS, viewed 9 March 2011,

< http://www.warehouse-inventory-software.com/wms-software.html>.

NNDB 2009, James Lewis Kraft, viewed 5 March 2011,

<http://www.nndb.com/people/021/000165523/>.

Philip, BW 2010, Kraft Food Company’s History, viewed 10 March 2011,

<http://homepage.mac.com/allanmcnyc/textpdfs/kraftfoods.pdf>.

Reuters 2011, CAPE warehouse management system’s operation, viewed 13 March 2011,

<http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/companyProfile?symbol=CYSG.BE>.

Skuflow 2011, CAPE warehouse operation, viewed 10 March 2011,

< http://www.skuflow.com/>.

Wong, YL 2011, CAPE warehouse management system, viewed 10 March 2011,

<http://www.capesystems.co.uk/cape_articles.htm>.

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APPENDIX

Diagram 1.1: Logo of Kraft Food Company.

Source: Kraft Food 2011, Kraft Food Company Logo, viewed 10 March 2011,

<http://www.kraftfoodscompany.com/mediacenter/imagegallery/media_center_logos.asp

x>.

Diagram 1.2: Products of Kraft Food Company.

Source: Shen, VY 2011, Kraft Food Products, viewed 10 March 2011,

<http://www.livestrong.com/article/63080-list-kraft-foods/>.

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Diagram 1.3: Founder of Kraft Food Company, James Lewis Kraft.

Source: Felicia, GD 2011, Founders of Kraft Food Company, viewed 10 March 2011,

<http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~boehm/data/biographies/

1874_Kraft_James_Lewis_bio.html>.

Diagram 1.4: Evident of Kraft Food Company is using CAPE WMS.

Source: Cape System 2011, CAPE system’s customer list, viewed 10 March 2011,

<http://www.capesystems.com/cape_systems_customer_list.htm#food>.

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