From field to dispatch, margin is lost where nobody measures

Receiving, collection and grower settlement

Raw material comes in with weights and parameters written by hand at each collection point. Settlement with the grower is calculated later, in a spreadsheet, and the differences open disputes that erode the commercial relationship.

Production and processing

In each process the product turns into several by-products with different yields. Without a record per process, actual yield is an estimate and shrinkage becomes an aggregate number nobody can explain.

Lots, expiration dates and traceability

The lot is tracked on sheets and labels. Faced with a claim, a customer audit or a product recall, reconstructing where each lot came from and where it went means reviewing documents from several departments.

Quality and sanitary controls

Quality parameters and sanitary controls are recorded in formats specific to each plant. They are not tied to the lot or the supplier, so they feed neither the settlement nor the purchasing decision.

Inventory, cold chain and shelf life

Perishable inventory is controlled by totals rather than by lot and date. Without a first-expired-first-out rule, whatever is at hand ships first and product is lost to expired shelf life.

Cost per process and per by-product

Cost is calculated at plant level and spread across by-products with criteria nobody reviews. So nobody knows which cut, which line or which format earns margin and which one consumes it.

Biological inventory and farm operations

In the field operation, livestock, treatments, weights and tasks are recorded in notebooks and sheets, disconnected from purchasing, sales and finance.

Mobility and data capture at the plant and in the field

Information is generated where there is no desk: the scale, the processing room, the collection point, the paddock. If capture does not happen there, it is transcribed later and arrives late and with errors.

Executive leadership

Sees which lines, formats and channels sustain the business margin with the real processing cost built in, and decides on capacity, assortment and markets with its own yield data.

Finance leadership (CFO)

Gets cost per process and per by-product with explicit allocation criteria, values perishable inventory by lot and explains shrinkage as a list of causes instead of a global adjustment at close.

Operations and plant (COO)

Tracks the yield of each process against the defined standard, identifies where shrinkage is generated and schedules production with visibility of available raw material and its expiration date.

Quality and food safety

Records parameters and controls tied to the lot and the supplier, blocks stock on a deviation and responds to an audit or a recall by querying the full path of the lot from the system.

Purchasing, collection and grower relations

Settles with the grower using the weights and quality parameters recorded at receiving, under rules configured in the system, which makes the settlement explainable and repeatable.

Information technology (IT)

Integrates scales, barcode readers, labeling and sensors through documented interfaces, reduces parallel spreadsheets and manages identities, access and backups in the Microsoft cloud.

1. 1

   Business layer (ERP): Dynamics 365 Business Central concentrates finance, purchasing, inventory by lot, production, quality, sales and costing. It is the master record of items, lots, suppliers and transformations.

2. 2

   Vertical layer: specialized extensions for dairy and meat processes that complement the standard when the process demands it, keeping the ERP as the single source of financial data.

3. 3

   Plant and field capture layer: apps on Power Platform and barcode scanning to record weights, controls and movements at the point where they happen, even with intermittent connectivity.

4. 4

   Data and analytics layer: Power BI consolidates yield, shrinkage, cost per by-product and margin in a governed model, with a single definition per indicator.

5. 5

   Collaboration layer: Microsoft 365 and Teams for approvals, plant notices, procedures and quality instructions accessible from the floor.

6. 6

   Telemetry and integration layer: Azure services to receive signals from scales, labelers and temperature sensors in cold rooms and transport, tied to the corresponding lot.

7. 7

   Security and governance layer: identity and conditional access in Microsoft Entra, permissions by plant and by role, change traceability on quality and settlement records, and backups in the Microsoft cloud.

Case studies pending client authorization.

Does Business Central work for a dairy or meat plant?

Business Central covers finance, purchasing, inventory by lot, production, sales and costing, which is the core of any processing plant. For sector-specific processes, such as deboning into multiple by-products or collection with settlement based on quality parameters, it can be complemented with specialized extensions. What the standard solves and what requires an extension is defined in the assessment.

How is lot traceability handled?

Lot and serial number traceability is part of the Business Central standard and is configured according to your control points: receiving, processing, packaging and dispatch. From there, the path of a lot can be queried from the system, backward to the grower or supplier and forward to the customer, with the associated quality controls.

Can I integrate scales, readers and labeling?

Yes. Scales, barcode readers, label printers and temperature sensors are integrated through defined interfaces, so the data enters the system at the point and moment it is generated. The scope depends on the equipment you already have installed and is defined during design.

How are the by-products of a single process costed?

By defining in the design how the cost of the process is allocated across the by-products it generates and recording the actual yield of each run. What matters is that the allocation criterion is explicit and reviewable, because it determines which product line looks profitable and which does not.

Does it work with limited connectivity at the plant or in the field?

Scenarios with intermittent connectivity are handled with mobile capture that syncs when the link is restored, and by defining which operations can be recorded offline. It is a design decision taken at the start, not a configuration added later.

Is the cloud mandatory?

We recommend the Microsoft cloud for security, availability and lower administrative burden. When there are real connectivity constraints or specific industrial requirements, hybrid scenarios are evaluated during the assessment, with their cost and operational implications in plain view.

How long does an implementation take?

It depends on the number of plants, the complexity of the processing steps, the use of specialized extensions and the state of the data being migrated. We do not publish generic timelines: the complimentary assessment delivers a phased schedule with stated assumptions.