Lot Management: The Golden Goose of Seafood Trading

One of the up-and-coming trends in the world of operational efficiency is Lot management via seafood ERP. In Layman's language, lot management is a system that enables inventory management before, during and after storage. A lot here refers to a batch of inventory received, stored and shipped from a warehouse to a designated location with specific dates and times. 

This is particularly useful in an industry like seafood trading where transport and storage are the name of the game. With food safety being of primal importance, expiration of seafood is a major concern. Hence the ability to track lots becomes a prerequisite which can only be done via an effective lot management system through Seafood ERP. 

Challenges of Seafood Trading 

Some of the major barriers seafood traders need to overcome are as follows:

1)  Actual Vs Estimate

One of the biggest threats to seafood traders is the deviation in actual and estimated weight of seafood. As a result of this deviation, seafood traders had to incur heavy losses as they paid for the variability in weight.

2)  High Storage Costs

Without an effective lot management system, the storage costing was not only inaccurate but was very inefficient as there was no way to automate operations and ensure the supply chain was smooth. Owing to this, seafood traders paid huge chunks of money in terms of storage cost 

3)  Customer Grievances

Seafood traders for long have been host to a number of customer grievances especially in the food quality and food safety domains. The primary reason for their grievance arose due to expired seafood being served at the table. Without the ability to track, expired seafood becomes the new normal and the primary reason behind customer dissatisfaction. 

Solution

The only way out for seafood traders is seafood ERP with an effective lot management system. An ELM brings to the table the following:

1. Catchweight Management 

A seafood ERP lot management feature ensures Catch Weight management. Hence at the time billing a customer would pay for the actual weight of seafood ensuring no deviation and transparency. This not only ensures customer satisfaction but also prevents seafood traders from incurring any such losses owing to deviations. 

2. Lot Tracking

Through lot management lot tracking is not only possible but also done effectively as it is automated. This ensures defective lots are tracked and disposed of in turn resulting in customer satisfaction. 

3. Storage Cost Optimization

With the ability to track lots via seafood ERP storage cost optimization is a given. Getting real time data on where each lot is at all times, supply chain flows smoothly ensuring all products flow in time and seafood nearing expiration dates are disposed. This results in huge savings in terms of low storage cost for seafood traders

4. Lot Visibility and Usability

Having access to not only lot numbers but each barcode to track results in high operational efficiency. Not only this results in setting up and managing lot attributes but at the same time allows for lot attribute substitution killing two birds with one stone all because of seafood ERP with an effective lot management system 

5. ELM Reports

Lot management ensures the following data is reported: 

1. A) Products movement tracked at each stage of production
2. B) Specific lot reports
3. C) Recalls facilitated when needed 
4. D) How the profits are of seafood traders are getting affected by the process and procedures in place.

One of the prominent players of Seafood ERP offering the lot management feature is INECTA. A prominent Microsoft gold certified partner, INECTA offers flexible pricing subscriptions for lot management systems via seafood ERP. Keeping customer service at its core, it brings to the table a lot traceability feature wherein seafood traders can work effectively without requiring many customizations which is a quest for many seafood traders across the globe. 

The seafood trading industry is very dynamic with seafood traders looking out for every which way to bring operational efficiency to the core of their operations. In this regard lot management has emerged as the X factor as not only it brings saving for seafood traders but also end customer satisfaction. As a result, it’s safe to say lot management via seafood ERP helps to differentiate the best of seafood traders from the rest.