# Factory operations at GoDesi

> Raw material to finished goods across several snack factories, with the cooking process itself monitored and every transaction landing in ERPNext as it happens.

- **Page** - https://iotready.com/case-studies/godesi-factory-operations
- **Client** - GoDesi
- **Published** - 2023-09-01
- **Industry** - [Snacks & Sweets](https://iotready.com/industries/snacks-sweets.md)
- **Solution** - [Warehouse Management](https://iotready.com/solutions/warehouse-management.md)

## Results

- **100%** Batch traceability across facilities
- **Real time** ERPNext sync, from hours of delay
- **FIFO** Picking enforced by the system

## The problem

GoDesi makes traditional Indian snacks and sweets at scale, and grew faster
than its paperwork. Stock across several factories and warehouses was on manual
logs. Raw material procurement, putaway, picking, production consumption,
finished goods storage and dispatch were all tracked on paper, and ERPNext
lagged the floor by hours.

Sweets cooking is the hard part. Temperature and time have to adapt to how much
moisture the raw material happens to carry that day. And older finished goods
were not always picked first, so stock expired that did not need to.

FSSAI compliance requires tracing raw material input for each batch. That could
not be done from the logs that existed.

## Inventory, end to end

Every activity from raw material receipt to finished goods dispatch runs on the
platform and syncs to ERPNext as it happens.

**Raw material** - In and to the line

1. Procurement by scan with weight validation
2. Putaway to a tracked location
3. Guided picking for production

**Production** - Through the process

1. Consumption recorded against the batch
2. Semi-finished goods captured between stages
3. Finished goods created as production completes

**Warehouse** - Out of the door

1. Audited transfers between sites
2. Putaway with manufacturing date
3. FIFO picking and order management

Any finished product traces back to the raw material batches behind it. Expiry
alerts fire before stock ages out, and a quality question is answerable in
minutes rather than by a factory-wide hunt.

## Watching the cooking

Temperature and time are monitored live across every line, and the target
adjusts to the moisture content of the raw material rather than following a
fixed recipe. A large shopfloor display shows the status of all lines at once,
and an operator gets a green or red light when a batch drifts out of spec.

The production log writes itself, which is both one less job and a compliance
record that was not there before.

## In ERPNext

Goods receipts post on receipt. Production consumption, semi-finished and
finished goods entries, transfers and putaway all post as stock entries.
Picking and dispatch are matched to sales orders. Costing is batch-wise,
because the batch is what the system has been recording all along.

## On the floor

Weighing scales on WiFi capture the weight at receiving and at packing, so
nobody reads a number off a display and writes it down. Fixed and handheld
scanners cover raw material, semi-finished and finished goods. Temperature
sensors feed the cooking monitor. Supervisors, warehouse operators and the
quality team work from Android apps.

## Why it fit

Most of this was already in ERPNext. The platform is built around its workflows
and doctypes, so a stock entry lands as the entry ERPNext expects and not as a
generic API call that somebody then has to reconcile.

New factories and warehouses go live in days. Workflows can be changed without
a developer, and GoDesi has changed them as it has grown.

An ERP repeats whatever it is told, and for GoDesi that used to be hours old
and typed from paper. Now it is told by the scale and the scanner, when it
happens. We wrote more about that in
[ERPs repeat the lies we tell](https://iotready.com/insights/erps-repeat-the-lies.md).

## What was deployed

- [Weighing Scale Data Logger](https://iotready.com/hardware/weighing-scale.md): Turns an existing RS232 scale into a connected station - weight and a scan together, shown on a jumbo display and published over Bluetooth LE.
- [QR & Barcode Scanner](https://iotready.com/hardware/qr-fixed.md): A fixed-mount, IP68 scanner that reads every common 1D and 2D code over one RS232 cable, built for washdown lines a handheld will not survive.
- [Label Management & Printing Station](https://iotready.com/hardware/label-printer.md): Puts an existing weighing scale and an off-the-shelf barcode printer under one central label catalogue, so the price and the weight on the label are the ones the system holds today.