Here we go. I’ll let a few people filter in here as well.

There we go.

Good to see a few familiar faces coming in, Harvey. Okay. Well, good afternoon and good morning forever for wherever you’re joining us from. And thank you for taking the time out of your day as we explore the world of food safety and quality excellence with our our customer our SSMB, our Cisco specialty meat group.

And it’s great to see so many familiar faces here and jumping on with us already. So and, of course, you know, welcome to to anyone watching the session on demand. We do hope you find today’s session insightful and as informative as we intend it to be. And and hopefully, you do walk away with something of value.

Now today, we’re gonna delve into Cisco’s journey in achieving food safety and quality excellence across their specialty meat group and how AutoComply really kind of our our food safety and quality system, how we’ve kind of assisted the team in achieving some of those goals. And you can see there on the right hand of your screen, we’re joined by three of Cisco’s FSQA directors, and it’s great to have them on with us. You know, they’ve taken their time or or days to provide us with some useful insight, and that’s gonna allow us to to better understand some challenges and some of the opportunities facing industry.

And and, of course, their use of auto comply and what you might be able to do to to pave your way to to operational excellence in in twenty twenty four and and beyond.

So just before we begin, I want to encourage the audience to ask as many questions as possible throughout today’s session. My colleague, Amy, is on the panel today for us, and she’s gonna kinda keep the oversight of of that q and a box. So feel free to throw a question there or in the chat below, and she’ll keep us informed of anything that does come through. And we also have some questions, I think, that came in through the questionnaire, and that was sent out via attendees. So if you did ask a question via that form, we know we really appreciate that. We’re gonna be addressing those questions at the end. And we also have end of webinar survey, so it would be great if you could take two minutes to give us any feedback and or any thoughts you have on today’s session.

So on the panel, I’ll just quickly introduce AutoComply first. On the panel today from AutoComply, you have yourself and you have Susan. Susan, do you wanna go ahead and introduce yourself?

So I’m Susan Fitzsimmons. I’m the chief customer officer here at AutoComply, and I have been working very closely along with Northern and team in helping roll out the AutoComply platform into different fiscal divisions. So my job is just learning how what the customer challenges are, how to then implement those workflows, and how to automate their journey. So I spent a lot of my time working with customers just to understand those problems that they have.

Perfect. Thanks, Susan.

And for those who don’t know me, my name is Richard Wilson. I’m part of the the marketing sales team here at AutoComply. And I’ve been with the team for about six six years now, I think it is. And and similar to Susan, you know, part of my role is is working alongside the the customers and the success team, whether you’re in the heavy manufacturing space, automotive, food processing, and and so on. So just really assisting those teams through their digital transformation journey.

And I’m personally really enjoying, you know, working in in the technology space, particularly in truth, and hence the reason I’ve been with all the compliance for six years now. And and the team you have here today are very kinda well versed in in the challenges and facing the industry from issues relating to risk and quality to supply chain and even the the technological advancements in the space from automation, machine learning, and AI, for example. So there’s a lot of brainpower on the panel for sure. So make sure you you ask as many questions as possible today.

And as you can see, there’s some familiar faces that are joining us from Cisco. So, Norland, do you wanna go ahead and introduce yourself and then open the floor to the rest of your team?

Yeah. So, my name is Norland Tipton. I have a PhD in, animal science from Texas a and m. I, started off my career actually working in the cow calf side of things and sort of transitioned over to the feed yard side, so the live animal side, and then, got interested in meat science from there.

And so, ended up going back to A and M, getting a PhD in, meat science or actually it’s animal science with a meat science emphasis and transitioned over into the meat world and started working for a company called Fort Dodge out of, A and M. I did some, animal, pharmaceutical sales there, technical service, and then transitioned over to Cisco and started out in two thousand three with them and pretty much at the beginning of their venture into purchasing specialty meat companies and been with that group ever ever since and built out a FSQA structure there that, is underneath me, has three regional directors, twenty five locations, and, well over a hundred and seventy folks now.

So with that being said, I will turn it over to to Emily, and she can introduce herself. Or, actually, we’ll start with Krista.

Hi, everyone. I’m Krista Lotts. I’m the regional director of food safety for Cisco on the east side, and I’ve been with Sysco for, going on eleven years now.

And, previous to that, I worked for another company in the meat meat side of things. So, yeah, happy to be here.

Brilliant. Thank you, Krista. And Emily?

Hi. Hi, everyone. My name is Emily Nguyen. I am the FSQA director at Newport Meet in Northern California. I’ve been with Cisco for almost five and a half years now and loving it. Previously, I was with, Cargill and Atkins Ranch. Prior to that, I worked at a micro lab and chemistry lab, and then I have a degree in chemistry at UC, Santa Cruz.

Perfect. Thanks. And, Norlin and team, do you wanna go ahead and introduce Cisco for those that that don’t know who they are? Cisco Specialty Group.

Yeah. I’ll go ahead and take that one. So, we’re the global leader in food service dis distribution. Started out in nineteen sixty nine, nine nineteen seventy, actually, in Houston, Texas.

There were seven local or seven companies throughout the nation that John Baugh, our founder, brought together, and we started our journey into food food service distribution then. We’ve since expanded out. We’re international now. We’ve got many, many locations throughout the world.

I I would venture to guess we’re the largest food service distributor in the world.

I work on the specialty meat side of things. Cisco decided at one point in time that, they needed specialists in the area of the center of the plate. And when I say the center of the plate, I’m talking about, you know, high end seafood, high end steaks, things of that nature. And, so we started purchasing those companies in the early two thousands, and they support our broader distribution companies from the standpoint of having high end specialty, meat and seafood items to provide through Sysco as well as through our own distribution to the street.

We provide customized solutions for restaurants, hotels, and food service. We are a specialty company, and that means that we go out to our customers and pre we provide them what they need. They come to us, and they say, we we we present to them the portfolio, but then we’ll specialize it for them. So if they have a a specification they want for a specific item, we’ll work with them to, either match that something we have in house or create it for them.

So we do a lot of that and then distribute through, both Cisco as well as our own, you know, distribution fleet. And so that allows us to go out there and match our deliveries to what the customer needs and and, you know, sort of one of the things we’ve got at Cisco is our, you know, do it your way. And so, you know, we do a lot of that. We we we customize for what our customers need.

And, you know, one of the things that those customers are expecting is not one of the things, two things, is food safety and quality. Right? And so nobody goes to a restaurant expecting, you know, to get sick ever. And and we ensure that on our side of the equation. And then at the same time, if you’re going to the restaurants that we tend to, you know, service, you know, it’s more of a high end type establishment. And so you’re expecting a quality experience, there. And so that’s what we do on a regular basis.

Perfect. Thanks, Lauren. And you can actually you know, we’re starting to witness some of Cisco’s growth across the border as well here in Ireland. And and just outside that, I think it’s not not corner. And I think it’s where Yeah. We’re building a distribution center.

And it’s supposed to completely because I think Liddell had the biggest distribution center in North Carolina.

Okay.

But this is supposed to completely Yeah.

Yeah. We we started out with Palace in Ireland there and then transitioned over to Briggs, and that’s now Cisco UK.

No. It’s very interesting. And thanks, Norden. And from our side, and so kind of similar to or touching a little bit on what Norden said there as well and and what the team mentioned.

You know, AutoComply is seeking you know, constantly seeking new ways to address these these industry challenges and through a combination of in house innovation and more importantly, you know, continuous collaboration with experts in the industry. And, you know, specifically our our customers and our partners. And they’re really the ones that are dictating our road map, our system road map. By the end of the day, they’re giving us directions about where we should go and where the industry’s And and for those that don’t know, AlderComply, we’re a complete quality management system, and and we work with a number of food organizations across the globe and and touching all aspects of the of the food value chain from the fire engagements and production and distribution right through to the the end retailer or or the end customer.

And we’re headquartered in Belfast, and we’ve been in the industry now for just under ten years, I think.

And while we do service a number of highly regulated industries such as for the Dow, automotive, legal, and manufacturing and so on, and, you know, food manufacturing, food distribution in the world of food, it’s our bread and butter. And especially, Lauren touched on that a wee bit there as well, the demand for, you know, safer, fresher, higher quality products continues to rise. And it’s become increasingly challenging for organizations to maintain that that product consistency or comply with increasingly stringent regulations or just meeting the the transforming needs of the customer, and and that’s where we come in.

Now it it’s our goal to kinda provide that that one centralized platform, and that really incorporates and connects all aspects of your value chain. And, you know, from that initial supplier qualification to that frontline worker and conducting a a metal detection check, for example, fine. Just driving that connection, that visibility, and and that control across your organization. And with all with all the the kind of the the goals and aims to achieve that that operation. And, of course, that means that, you know, there’s paper stuff, heavy legacy systems for a more automated, scalable, and easy to use approach.

And it really just gives them the extra kind of edge in the industry as well, you know, in generating that kind of a hard dollar return in in weeks and months rather than rather than years, you know, getting that instant ROI. And, you know, this kind of system, a quality management system, rule of our cost center, it’s really an opportunity for organizations and to grow. And we want to kind of help ourselves help them, you know, achieve the the profit margins and sustainability and growth that they’re looking for.

And, Susan, is there anything I haven’t mentioned there or anything you want to expand on with regards to all the compliance?

No. I think it, like, comes up very well. I think that’s the thing that we’ve always been trying to tell us. It we have the same thought as our customers that we’re working with.

It’s around how we actually help improve their workflows, make them more efficient, and how they can get more capacity into their team and drive quality. It’s a continuous improvement cycle for us as well as them. So we learn from them, and then we bring that back into our product. So we work very closely with the customers to ensure that the product service them and helps them meet the plans that they have in their space.

Yeah. No. Well said. And if you do want to learn more about our platform, Amy’s gonna post the link into the chat there below.

So feel free to reach out. Feel free to to schedule a quick chat or even if you want to prevent some frustration. I know we’ve had a a couple of calls like that. And, you know, we we love to hear about your challenge and and what you might be having or challenge you might have.

Sorry. And or we’d be kinda more than happy to show you how how to find myself some of those headaches for you and your team. So moving into today’s discussion and to to really set the theme, and the question, you know, we’re asking ourselves here is, you know, what are we trying to achieve? And, you know, what is what is the what is this common goal, especially for the larger free organizations like Cisco and Specialty Meat, you know.

And this could be distilled down to to one one simple question. How can we establish a stronger and food safety and and quality culture?

You know, this is kind of the the bedrock of of trust and reputation and sustainability and growth for your organization. It’s about the the process that that we currently have in place and the shared values and behaviors and improving employee engagement and continuous improvement, you know, stronger leadership and commitment, and just more transparent communication, better education and training. And, of course, that that quality, that regulatory compliance aspect as well as that risk avoidance.

And there’s so much more, but this all falls. This all falls under that that kind of establishment of that strong food safety and quality culture. And when we talk about food, and Norman again touched on in the intro there, it’s never about the flavor of the presentation or even the the the finest cuts of meat. It’s it’s the invisible elements, the crucial elements ensuring the products that that are reaching our customers are not only satisfying in taste, but they’re also harmless and of the of the highest grade possible.

So my my first question to the the the panel today, and specifically to Norlin, Krista, and Emily, just to kick things off. You know, how do you believe a strong food safety and quality culture really contributes to the overall success and and sustainability of of Cisco speciality.

So, I tell my team on a regular basis, and this is something that they hear from me, you know, over and over and over and over again.

If you get right down to it, we’re in the business of making, a a profit off the sales of meat and seafood. If you get right down to it, that’s why we’re here. That’s why the business is here, and we support that. And the way that we support that is to ensure that the food safety is beyond reproach. That means that we make sure that the food safety, you know, is a part of the overall culture of the organization.

And we work with the teams in a positive way. And when I say teams, I mean the other functional groups. In a positive way to make sure that food safety is always on everybody’s mind with what they’re doing because food safety can you know, that can cripple you instantaneously. If you get your name out there in the public or things go bad, from a food safety standpoint, you’re in a recall or worse, an outbreak, you know, things can go very, very bad for the organization. So we support it that way to make sure the food safety is beyond reproach. And the food quality is, beyond reproach as well. And when we’re comparing apples to apples out there on the market, we get more of the marketplace because our products are higher quality.

So you have the food safety component, the food quality component, and then last but not least, the regulatory component component. So the regulatory component is complying with regulations that are either local or, you know, national in, nature, and you have to demonstrate your compliance there. And, while you would like to think that those are all food safety and food quality driven, perhaps they’re not, but meeting that compliance, keeps you in business because, you know, nothing can shut you down faster than a food safety and outbreak issue. But close behind that or even, you know, greater than that at certain times is regulatory compliance. So that’s that’s how this process and food safety culture and everything that comes along with it and everything that we do, you know, become an important an important part of the organization and what we do on a daily basis. I don’t know. Emily, Christy, you got anything you wanna add to that?

So, you know, Cisco really stands for, you know, ensuring a a really good food safety and quality culture, not only from the corporate level, but even, you know, from the facility level. So I am at one of the facility, and I definitely, you know, really relay that message down to the team. And when I say team, like Nolan said, it’s everyone on the team. That includes operation. That includes FSQA. That includes, you know, the administrative team.

So, you know, we really wanna make sure that, you know, we work together and not in silos. And so in order to, you know, maintain that strong culture, we have to be able to communicate and and really, you know, relay certain issues that happen immediately. And one of the things that, you know, we really love about audit comply is is that, you know, I’m able to get, you know, real time data to be able to provide feedback. Right? So not only just, you know, food safety feedback, but quality feedback. You know, being able to provide our customers with, you know, what their product looked like during that day, during that time, being able to do all of our regulatory check, all of our quality check, you know, in in one template. That’s that’s part of being able to build that strong food safety and quality culture together.

Yeah. And that let me add to that and ask Christa something here. I mean, Christa, wouldn’t you think that when, you know, we were doing things before, you know, we were doing them on, you know, hard copy sheets and putting them in a filing cabinets and all that good stuff. And then, you know, you work with your team there, and your team sees you taking on the latest technology and everything, and they see that as a commitment.

And I think that you would agree, right, that that that sort of brings them on board with the fact that, hey. We’re actually really committed to this thing, this food safety and cold quality assurance culture thing because, hey. Look. We’re willing to take on the latest technology and said, don’t you see a lot of that with your team there?

Absolutely. Yeah. And it creates that consistency that we’re looking for across across the, you know, the other s s m g’s.

And would you say as well then?

So you’re saying technology is really the the driver for that. And so, you know, you dish the the paper process, you dish the manual and Excel sheets, word documents, everything in that regard, and you kind of push forward with technology. They see that. So is technology really playing that pivotal transformational and improving the culture across the organization?

Yeah. I would say absolutely. I mean, you know, think about it. If you see somebody out there, you know, using what I used to call the big chief number two, a big chief, tablet and a number two pencil, and that’s the thing over there here that you used to see in elementary school all the time, right, is, there were all those, you know, lines that you would write in that tablet and everything.

And when you see everybody out there using a outdated technology and, you know, you’re saying, well, are are people not really committed to going with the latest in this area? And so maybe that area isn’t quite as important as they might think it is. So Yeah. Yeah.

I I think that’s a perfect example.

And I think as well, you know, Liz oh, sorry. Go ahead, Amy.

I just was gonna add, you know, that our team, you know, at our site here, has it always gets really super excited when we’re gonna try new things that are gonna create efficiencies for them and create better communication with the other departments, you know, being able to to send pictures and, you know, and and and and assessments and and real time, like Emily said, is really beneficial to us in getting things corrected when we need to or just sharing information in general.

I think that it has actually helped going across the number of facilities that you have, that interaction, and you can all know begin to lean on each other, and you are all sharing information and sharing how you do things. So I think these are starting to see that sort of consistency and being able to actually share knowledge among all the facilities as well. We take good practice into your other facilities too.

Yeah. You know, if you think about it, the ability to, standardize across all the facilities with the process as well as with the templates and, you know, while having a process to be able to modify those due to local, you know, nuances, you can set up an overall system that’s, much more consistent than, you might have with a, you know, manual, you know, printout, not a well, it’s a manual printout of a a file that somebody can potentially update locally that, you know, they have to do, for whatever reason, and and and it creates all kinds of inconsistencies because you have that happen at twenty five different locations versus one location where you go through a work and and this system while you can do it with the other system, this system makes it much easier.

And it’s interesting you say that as well, Marlene. So for a lot of people on the call today, you know, that is the dream to kinda have all that managed under one roof. And this is exactly what you’re doing today with AutoComply. And, you know, you’ve kind of been using AutoComply to ingrain this this culture into into your ecosmos, which has already been there, of course.

And but with that kind of bespoke environment, you’ve been able to assess, manage, and monitor your programs across the entire group. And we’ve been implemented across twenty five sites. And and, of course, we’re we’re thrilled to spotlight that today. And and just kind of you just to go back to your initial challenge there, you know, what led you to the initial decision to to adopt auto comply?

You know, what were the the driving factors behind that choice?

You know, if if you look back and the reason that I actually decided to go that direction, was the fact that we had a lot of inconsistencies out there and what was occurring and a lot of inefficiencies.

And the inefficiencies were, you know, people were going out there and they were recording on, you know, a hard copy document, and, you know, they were writing down things on it. And and then it was coming back, and you were seeing, you you know, potential issues there with the documents, and it was very inefficient. They were putting it into all kinds of different storage, mostly filing cabinets. But anyway and then having to go back and then centralize those documents and then sign off with a verification signature and blah blah blah.

There’s all this stuff was going on that was like, that is very, very inefficient, and it’s it’s it fraught with the ability to have inaccurate data. And and so I decided at that point in time with technology and the way it was headed that we needed something that could digitize all this. And so we started looking at different companies out there, and we landed on AuditComply quite a while ago. And, the journey has been very nice since then.

So, it’s actually gotten us much more efficient and effective, and I’m much more confident in the data now than I was, when we started it started this venture. I think was about eight, ten years ago, actually, to tell you through.

It’s been so long, I’ve forgotten when it was.

It has.

I think we actually started up in in Ohio with Chris. We actually started with Imperial Seafood and Ohio with Chris.

Yep.

Yep. Long time ago now, Chris.

Come a long way. Yeah. Just come a long, long And and what really makes AutoComply stand out above above the the the rest? Because, obviously, there’s a few options in the market there for you, Marlon. So what was really standing out for you about AuditComply?

So there were a few things about AuditComply that made things much more comfortable for us.

And, you know, there was a I don’t know how to put this, but there at that point in time, there was a tendency to either want to keep things in house with the companies we were dealing with so we would have to go to them and have them build a template for us. We didn’t have any way ourselves. So the convenience of building our own templates for our audits was not there with a bunch of the platforms that were there. We had to go through them, and there was a special charge for doing that and everything, and there was no ability for our folks to do that.

And the ability of, AuditComply to come to us and be willing to customize things to meet our needs was very refreshing. Not only on the template side, but we’re talking about other sides as well as far as, you know, what went into the system and how it showed up to us in the system. We had a lot of back and forth with audit comply on that, and that that actually made it much more, you know, convenient for us. And, you know, to be honest with you, you know, they’re a relatively small company at that point in time, and the ability to be flexible and to deal with their customers and meet our their customers’ needs fit exactly with what we were doing with the specialty meat group is we’re out there trying to fit our customer needs.

And and and you wanted to see somebody like that that was, you know, willing to do some of the things that you were willing to do for your customers. And it just it ended up being a perfect marriage at that point in time. And so, yep, that’s, you know, two of the reasons we went. But then if all overarching, when you get right on top of everything, is the security that goes along with everything.

And the security system and the that they had and the ability to demonstrate an audit trail and you know, while you would look for that in any, outfit that was there, what I saw with them at that point in time and what they had in that area, you know, convinced me on top of everything else.

And then on on top of all that, the ability for a regulator to have a read only access and a read only user ID on there and look at the documents, and you could restrict which ones they could look at. And, you know, those those things came together. Those sort of you know, if I looked at the four big things that sort of came together and just, you know, sent us on the journey with AuditComply, that’s what it was.

Brilliant. And in terms of the the specific instance instances when you started using AutoComply, could you kinda delve into that a little bit more? You know, what type of data management was there? What type of audits were you doing? You know, what type of compliance activities, specifically around kind of the the raw material audits? Was that did you start using Autumnfly for your raw material audits and from the very get go, or was that a a period that you eventually implement that into it?

So the overall plan, when we first started with audit compliant was to move everything we were doing in audit compliance. So we actually started with other areas outside of the raw material audits.

And and that includes things like pre op inspections and, things like HACCP monitoring. And there there are whole host of different things out there that were on the radar screen for audit comply to shift from, you know, manual records into utilizing that platform and the templates.

But raw material audits were one of those. And the fact that, when we do raw material audits, we wanna audit our raw materials to specification, make sure we’re getting what we’re paying for. And, the ability to audit as much of that as you can is important because we bring in a whole lot of product on a on a regular basis. And our ability to audit as much of it as we can, reduces our potential for the yields being off on our finished products, which is important from an expense standpoint. And, it it makes sure that the quality is there for the customer. And so, our ability to speed up that process was important for us, and that’s one of the things that AuditComply helped us with. It it it was approximately four times faster when we went from, the old process of taking pictures, putting it into a PowerPoint, attaching a PowerPoint with the audit report to an email and sending that off, whereas now the pictures and the audit report and everything’s in audit comply.

And, Kristen, have you experienced those kinda same operational efficiencies that your individual sites as well?

Yeah. Yep. Absolutely.

He’s taking me backwards remembering how we used to do it compared to how we do it now and how time consuming it was on the back end to get all the information to the customer.

Not only

Now is it, you know, all digital and you have the ability to take the pictures and not just in the raw material on its side, but, you know, you have a nice presentation to the customer now or to the supplier now, you know, that is much more better than sending a hundred pictures in an email and and and typing up a narrative.

So it’s it’s definitely a lot better now.

It’s about communication, I think. Yeah. Because back when we first started, it was that you were going around, you were taking phones, and you had the clipboard, taking the photographs and writing the audits, and then everything was having to get transposed into an Excel sheet or a Word document. Whereas now, as you say, there’s a report that you can just share directly with the customers or to share with the suppliers. So it just makes the whole communication side of things much easier, much smoother too. Definitely.

Yeah. We and we Yes.

And we definitely love how, you know, we don’t have to do that whole traditional pen and paper anymore because I you know, every year I mean, I’ve been, you know, prepping for audit for over ten years now and going from, you know, FSCC twenty two thousand, little bit of BRC, then SQF every single year.

On point, the the week or the two weeks before the audit, we’re running around trying to gather all of our documentation, all of our records. It’s crazy to have to go back and try to remember every documents that you did in the last year to try to gather everything and put it together and bring it to your audit. Now I can just carry my laptop.

And, you know, if an audit if an auditor needs something, I just pull it up on the laptop. I put the range that they asked for, and then here you go. Here’s all the records. They’ve been reviewed, you know, daily or weekly, closed out.

Everything is there. I don’t have to go running around, you know, asking people where they store certain documentation. I mean, it’s it’s great. And then being able to, you know, do our raw material audits and having everything in one place, being able to communicate that to our vendor, having more time to be able to do more quality checks, food safety checks.

That’s one of the reason why, you know, we wanna be able to move towards that direction of the technology.

Yeah. And then the ability, you know, with your reporting to try and analyze your data that you’re putting in is much more streamlined and efficient.

Yeah.

Yeah. And, Emily, you were yeah. And, Emily, you were touching a little bit on the the customer engagement around the the trending analysis and the availability of that data. Could you delve into that a bit more for us?

So being able to, one, be pulling reports for our customer, like our high end customer, like, Ruth Chris, all of all of those customers that really want to put effort into analyzing their quality checks from all of the facility that they utilize. Right? So being able to pull, like, a really good looking PDF version of those checks or being able to even download the data in Excel and trending those data. But not only that, but even for our SQF audit, being able to, you know, put in all the data, trend it out, be analyzing it, putting together corrective action, preventive action, that’s how, you know, we wanna be able to move on that continuous improvement process with our foods, aging, and quality program.

Yeah.

And our customer loves it.

Yeah.

I it’s much, much better than what we had before, and I’ll I’ll add that the platform allows you to dashboard on it as well. So, you know, there’s a bunch of different capabilities here that you can have with this versus the old system, which was, to be honest with you, data transferred manually into an Excel spreadsheet and me building out a chart that was a trending chart in that Excel spreadsheet, which to tell you the truth is, very time consuming.

I can make it look slick, but it takes a whole lot of time. And so to tell you the truth, going with a platform that’s much more efficient and time conscious is not conscious or time efficient, is yeah.

It’s it’s worlds it’s world and world, difference than what we have.

And in terms of the the adoption with them, you know, you you everyone speaks very highly about the complaint here, but in terms of the adoption from the frontline, and what was your experience and feedback and being like there in terms of, you know, that everyone’s using their tablet, you know, they’re they’re putting the data onto mobile device compared to right now on a checklist. What was that transition like for you?

So let me give you a fifty thousand foot shot, and then I’ll send it to Emily and Krista. You know, it’s convenient to use.

We’re using something that they’re usually used to. I mean, ninety nine percent of them are used to it, an iPad. Right? And and so it allows them to use something that they’re normally used to, an iPhone, iPad, and it it’s relatively user friendly. So and understand that folks that we’re dealing with at the level that they’re using it, speak speak a variety of different languages, come from a variety of different cultures. And so the ease of the use of the platform is one of the things that, you know, is, important to me. And and I I would tell you that at that level, although Emily and Christa can speak to that, probably something that gets it, more into the hands and, easier for them to use.

It definitely helps, eliminating a lot of, errors and and and miss, checks because the ability to be able to put in, a section of the check being mandatory is what’s important. Right? When you look at the the traditional paper method, if you’re telling, you know, an operator that they need to make sure that they fill out this whole entire line for something, they they may miss it because, you know, they’re just thinking, I’m in a hurry. I’m just gonna fill it out, or I can fill out later.

With auto comply, we can definitely put that as mandatory, and then they would have to be able to fill those information in before they can go ahead and submit it. So if they were to forget, they can go back in and say, okay. You know, I I know I have to fill this in because I know this has to be submitted. The the facility really, loves the the iPad.

I think it makes them feel like, you know, we are advancing in technology. I mean, we are in the Bay Area. This is Silicon Valley. Technology is very important here.

And so, you know, they definitely love, you know, the the iPad idea. And then being able to integrate other things into the use with along with AutoComply on the iPad is also very important and how we communicate with our, colleagues here and and the other team as well.

Brilliant. And, Chris, is that a kind of a similar experience that you’ve had, like, again later?

Yep. Absolutely. And the idea of not walking around with a clipboard and having multiple things that you’re have to be accountable for now and and having all that into one iPad Yeah. As your main tool is is been huge for us. And I had another thought, but I lost it. Sorry.

No. You’re okay. And just to kinda bring it back a little bit as well, in terms of the adoption of your your frontline workers, and then you’ll we also talk about that that ability for the the regulator read only access. What’s it been like? Do you have any feedback from those third parties, you know, USDA, FDA, CIFH, and a comment and review these documents? You know, what’s their experience been like?

So I’m gonna I’m gonna kick that one over to Emily and Christa after I make one broad statement. There are regulatory requirements for what these systems can look like, and they have to be a secured system, and they have to be able to demonstrate, you know, what occurred, with, credibility behind the, information. So, you know, you have actual constraints, and they differ between USDA and FDA and CFIA.

But, making sure they’re a secure system and they can demonstrate what happened actually happened are are big things that regulators will look for. But, I’ll kick it over to, Krista and Emily, and they can say, you know, what it’s like, you know, interacting with the inspectors, which if everybody doesn’t know, in all CFIA and USDA plants, there’s an inspector there on a daily basis looking at documents. FDA is periodic, but the other two is a daily occurrence.

I know in our and and at least in my experience, yeah, I think every inspector is a little bit different in how they wanna see their information. So, you know, some like the access of the the iPad and and the being able to get on and just view what they need to review and then be done. Some like us to print off the reports, and others still like to see the manual side of things. So I think it really just depends on the inspector.

Make you work for it?

Yeah.

And in auto comply sorry. Before you before you go on there, Emily, in auto comply, we create a custom role for that specific user as well.

So they they can actually see just to kinda give the audience a bit of insight there. And for those who don’t use AutoComply, we create that custom role so they can come in and they get given their custom environment. And as I mean, and Kristen, you wanna mention there, they only do the the files that are actually relevant to to what they’re what they’re assessing. Sorry. I’m legal on.

I was just gonna say our inspectors love it. I kinda brought in the the idea to them, you know, over the course of the last few years. Like, hey. I’m gonna give you access to our system.

That way, don’t have to come find us. But I did it over the course of multiple inspectors just so I can kinda see how they feel about it. But maybe because we are in the Silicon Valley and they definitely don’t have an issue, they keep bringing it up. Like, when are you gonna get us access?

We, you know, we actually don’t wanna have to go find you. We wanna just be able to come in with real records and and move on because your facility is just so great. And and, you know, I love that. Right?

Because that that shows that, you know, they believe in in in us, in in Cisco. And so they just wanna come in, do their record review as part of their job, and then move on to, you know, doing other things. So here, they definitely love the idea of having it there. I definitely have an iPad set up.

I gave them all their access and login. They come in. They review their data. I don’t even see my inspector that much anymore unless there is an issue, and we haven’t had any issue at all.

And so I think they just love that idea of not having to be able to search for us in in this big facility that I am at here.

Yeah. Brilliant.

And just to to go back as well, you know, you’ve now implemented system across twenty five sites, and Susan, you’d quite instrumental from auto compliance point of view on this rollout too. I’d love to hear from you on this process as well. You know, in terms of developing, like, those roles, developing, like, those assets, can you speak to the scalability of the system? And what did we do and and the Cisco team do to ensure the quality and and compliance standards and templates, etcetera, and across each of those sites? Because obviously, each site’s gonna have a a local regulation they need comply with and and so on.

Yeah.

I think well, when we first got Northern and the team have mentioned, we started out with Cisco quite in the early days, and we have adapted the system, and we’ve added new functionality and new features to sort of meet the demand of that scaling large organizations such as Cisco. So we’ve now increased that you can have lots of different we call them assets, but, basically, like, your site, the facilities and departments. And then you can set up the structures around that. So it’s all around those custom rules access like we have for the USDA inspectors, but you can also control what templates are used in each one.

So the thing with Cisco is that a lot of their facilities, they’re making different products, they’re serving different customers, and so we have built that into our system, working alongside Cisco’s team, built it into the system that the system adapts to how they work with an organization. So we work with the core team on building out those standardized templates that they have at a sort of corporate level, but then we work with each facility on an individual level to make sure that they could actually meet their own individual requirements that they had. And that’s probably that’s the thing that we have we’ve brought them on that journey, and we’ve been on a journey with them as to how we learn about how their organization work, what sort of functionality that they have need, and then we bring that we brought that back into the system.

So we’ve actually then had our developers develop certain functionalities, certain features, so that it’ll actually deal with that size and scale of organization with the variance that you get, but also then to give that standardization.

Going I’m going back to my thought earlier that I lost.

With the folks using our you know, the system day in and day out, we’ve really empowered them and encouraged them to come up with new ideas on how we could utilize the technology and build out those templates, as we look to make changes and make things more efficient. They’ve really enjoyed being a part of that conversation.

Yeah. That’s a bit we actually love working with Cisco is that you do as a team, you guys are quite sort of additive in how you think about, you know, what more can we do? What can we add in the system? Can the system do that?

So the records review functionality, we actually built that in partnership with yourselves as to how we could actually make it easy for you to do that verification. And so that’s, you know, that’s part of it. As you sort of, like, start to use you’ve been using the system, you’ve learned more about what you can do and what you can build in the system, then that helped us. So it has so, yeah, definitely a partnership.

And that brings me to a nice note to my next point, actually. And, Norlin, you’ve you’ve mentioned on several occasions, the confidence instilled by the platform with its ability to capture data wherever and where whenever, including getting that associate evidence, etcetera. Are there any functionalities specifically within the platform that really significantly kinda contribute to to an increasing confidence and assurance of that data. For example, you know, the extensive audit trails or and the information that’s captured in a final audit report, making everyone accountable, I think, Emily referenced too as well.

Yeah. I think there’s two things there. One is the overall security of the system and the way that that’s set up and, you know, the access. And, you know, beat BT, we call it business technology, but IT IT set technology and security and security and the ability to make sure the platform is secure is, you know, a huge thing across all enterprises right now. And and so that’s one of the big things to us, but the audit trail.

So being able to tell who touched what when is very important for what we were talking about previously, which was the regulators, but even more important for SQF. Or I would I would actually put them on equal footing. So the ability to demonstrate what happened when with a, electronic trail to both a regulator as well as to the SQF auditors and the SQF process, vitally important.

And AuditComply does that for us. So yep.

Right. Thanks, Lauren. And, Krista and Emily, how important has it been to kinda implement? And let’s say, we go right down to the the audit template level and that configuration of those templates, you know, managing your own scoring and grading schemes, working with all the compliance to build those sites within each of these templates, you know, does that kinda give you the the confidence that, you know, every report that is generated is really a true reflection of your your compliance status at any given moment. There’s no questions. Oh, is that right or is that correct?

Oh, did I did I come off?

Sorry. Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

Yes. You know, being able to look at, you know, an assessment that’s done by, let’s say, a receiver and being able to say, okay. Now now I know that this product is coming in. It’s at the right temperature.

It’s it has the all of the invoices or documentation that it needs because we’re able to take pictures of that. I mean, that in itself is really good for for me who reviews all of that record to see what’s coming in that day. Right? And then that also ties into being able to see what comes comes in that day and then planning how I do my raw material audits, planning also with production on how, you know, we would plan certain production, time for certain product because we might have some special, projects for that week or that month.

So being able to, you know, see how the the product is being documented and how it’s being received is one example of, like, you know, being able to do proper documentation review. But what I wanna say also is, you know, I love the personalization customization that Susan would do for us. So, you know, I would come to her with different ideas and, like, Susan, is this possible? And then, you know, she would always try to find a creative way to make it possible for us.

And I think that’s one of the reason why we love AutoComply is because, you know, it’s almost like endless amount of, like, possibility that we can do on how we do some of our checks and being able to put that into our process. So being able to work with a a system like AutoComply that would cater to how we want our, you know, quality management system to go is is really important for us here at the SSMG.

Yeah. It’s definitely huge for building out your templates to make sure you’re meeting those regulatory and, you know, your GFSI requirements.

And then as issues come up, especially for us across our sites, if we’re having issues with multiple sites, we can say, hey. What if we put this in here to make sure that we’re checking this box and we’re not forgetting about this? You know, when Emily talks about our receivers, you know, a simple thing that is a regulatory requirement we may miss, we’re able to encompass that into our templates to make sure we’re not missing it going forward. Right?

That’s actually it’s a very good point, actually, Krista, because, you know, while there’s a lot of platforms in the market today, you know, there are pack of features, some might not allow that kind of customization and to the environment, to the workflow, driven just down to the individual template level. And I was actually on a a call last week, and someone was telling me that, you know, they’re trying to make amends to the templates in their current system that it didn’t auto comply. But they’re using a vendor, but unfortunately, without vendor, I think was a half of template. But any amendments they were trying to make to their workflows, they would actually be charged for those changes because the developer had to come in and kinda revamp the environment and adapt them. And, of course, with that additional charge of a developer coming in and changing a template, then, of course, also comes lengthy wait times for when that developer freed up in in that kind of organization.

And so I think the the level of customization and flexibility offered by our system, I have always seen as the kind of the true, USP, if you will, in terms of actually being able to build this workflow.

No. Absolutely.

Yeah. That’s one of the things that’s been very, very, very helpful to us. And when you combine that with the time stamp of everything that’s occurred, it gives you the, the ability to go back and check the system. Right?

So, you know, no amount of electronic system that you have out there when you actually have to enter, you know, numbers or things that aren’t consistent, like, you don’t have a chest choice of yes or no or, you know, something like that. It’s, you know, continuous data that you’re having to enter. You have to go back and check that at some point in time. You have to put eyes on the ball, and the ability of the system to tell you when when things are happening allows you to plan for that moving forward.

So the flexibility and the ability to do that, yeah, two key two key components that I see. I don’t know. Emily, Krista, y’all, I guess, we’re gonna say something there, so might wanna add in or tell me what I’m saying there and, you know, whether or not it’s correct or not. But I’m from what I’ve seen, it is.

Yep. That’s correct, Marilyn.

Yep. Yeah. The better also is, like so while I work with you guys as well and sort of come up with those ideas is the bit from my point is actually seeing you guys go off and building your own templates now, because I know Emily has just built a fantastic template there with all conditional filters and things like that, trying to bring that to give a template out to all your facilities that they can all use the same template, but it’s got all the intelligence that’s built in. And Emily’s built that all herself, so it does.

And so I think that’s a fantastic that’s my point. It’s very rewarding thing. You’ve actually gone off and doing that by yourself. And you’ve got that capability within the system, and you’ve got the knowledge now that you know how to do it as well.

Yeah.

I could hand out gold stars, Emily.

And, Emily, actually, that’s that’s a good point to raise there. What is your template? Now that you’re doing it yourself, what’s the the template experience built? Sorry. The building experience been like for you, and, you know, has it been effortless? Is there kind of some learning curves? How how’s that experience been?

I actually love building templates. I don’t know. Maybe because it’s I am in the Silicon Valley, and I actually should be loving technology. But I I definitely love all the improvements that you’ve made, you know, throughout the last I believe it’s been, like, almost five years now, right, Susan, since I we we started on this here at this And so over the last five years, there’s been all these, like, great improvements that just makes the template billing really a wonderful experience for me.

And so I just love, you know, kind of thinking outside the box on how to make it still meet, you know, what what Nolan wants, but also cater to some of the things that we use on the the floor level as well too. And, you know, one of the greatest, template that I think I built was a poly for our customer, the quality on the quality side for our Darton and, Ruth Chris customer is being able to use, putting in all of the specification that they need, having that specification on the floor with the text. They’re able to see it. They’re able to look at that specification and go, okay.

This is, you know, the, for example, the weight tolerant or the cut spec, specification. And then seeing all that on their iPad while they’re doing that check just makes it easier for them instead of having to, you know, print out a copy of the specification or flipping back and forth between the screen on the iPad. The ability to you know, if if, let’s say, a weight is out of specification, it automatically, you know, highlights it. When I go to review it, they go to they go to, do their corrective action on it.

It’s just very effortless for them to make any type of correction that they need while they’re doing their quality check. And then sending those reports to, a customer, like, for example, you know, we run, retail products sometimes for some of our retail customers, and then I would take those quality checks, send it off to them whenever there’s an issue or even from, like, a routine side that they request for. They look at that and they go, you know, this is really great. Like, you know, we’re able to see everything that you do.

You know, they it it just really aligns with, you know, being able to move forward and and and being part of, you know, the the technology and how the world’s changing. And and I think it’s just a really good customer experience for for them, and so they really love that about us.

Well, brilliant. Thank you. Yeah. Sorry, Constance.

A great template. Sorry. No. There’s a that’s a great template. I think you’ve hit it the nail on the head.

There is how do you make a template that delivers what as a an organization and a corporation that you need as a business, but also make it easy for those people dying on the actual floor to actually use the template, and it’s getting that nice mix. I think that’s where you’ve done. So, yeah, it’s worked well.

Yeah. And on top of all that, one of the things that you need to stop and think about is, you know, the technology and what we’ve got here and the ability to utilize this technology to make us more efficient allows us to use the resource from the standpoint of headcount or whatever we might have out there, you know, system that can plug into it much more efficiently. And so it becomes much more cost effective.

And that kinda brings me on to my next point, Northern. You know, do you feel that you’ve got complete visibility and control of your operations with the system? And I’m interested to hear from you from a like you said, there are fifty thousand feet view, and then, Kristen, am I on that that per site level?

And does it kinda give you the confidence that everything is running as as it should be?

Yes. Much more than before because, to tell you the truth, before, I had to rely on a system that was very, very manual.

And there was an electronic component, and that was a send on an email. Everything else, everybody was having to compile and put together and send to me a report of what was going on in an email that I would get periodically once a month or maybe more often if we had issues. Now I can just, at a click of a button, go into a system and see, alright. This is what’s wrong here, or this is how everything’s going. So yeah.

That’s the fifty thousand.

And then Emily and Crystal on that per site level, are you able to kind of pull out those reports that kind of reinforces what what Northern Stanley?

Yes.

So for for us, you know, being able to look at the the reports and reviewing that daily, that’s really important in in maintaining, you know, really good record review for us.

But, also, you know, we really like the the visibility that we can also get across, you know, the other facility as well too. Because let’s say, for example, you know, we are a team member or a counterpart of ours might, you know, go on leave or on vacation or maybe, you know, they leave and move on to something bigger and better. And, you know, we the facility still has to run. Record still has to be reviewed. You know, we can’t just stop doing what we need to do just because there isn’t, you know, a a director in place. And so, you know, being able to support each other, from where we are remotely is something that’s really great because that way whoever comes in after or when they come back from leave or vacation, they don’t have a lot of, things that they would have to do. And then that way, we still would meet regulatory requirements, which require us to review our record at certain frequency.

Yeah. And that’s another thing to consider about this system is in the old system, you might have to go back and thumb through a bunch of records to determine what was not reviewed, because you have, you know at our sites, at one point in time, there were eighty eight different forms that you had to fill out on a regular basis. And so going back through all those forms and determining what wasn’t signed off on, at what time was a manual process. Now the system just tells you which ones are open and which ones aren’t.

And to follow-up on that point, and I appreciate we’ve only got maybe three minutes of today’s session. And so any of the panel members, if you need to drop something else or somewhere else to be that that’s gonna be fine. Okay? You can you feel free to drop off, and we’ll do a q and a at the end of the the hour session here.

But just to follow-up on that point, Norman, as we look ahead, for those that are still using or utilizing pen and paper, etcetera, those manual processes, You know, what advice would you have for them, you know, looking at this year, next year, and going forward? You know, we appreciate sometimes this process undergoing digital transformation that you’ve been through, and this is this is ten years in in the journey now that we’ve been together. And I can see him a bit daunting, a bit scary at times. So what what advice would you have for anybody looking for a solution?

And, Susan, if you wanna follow-up, you know, what advice would you have for the the the buyer?

So executives and companies are looking for, if not, they should be looking for efficiencies in the way to be much more efficient with the resources that you have utilizing, you know, reduced cost. Hopefully, growing revenues and a system like this is much more efficient at doing that than, the hard copy system that we had previously. And on top of that, you’re able to demonstrate, you know, to, you know, people out there with, much more, reliability what happened when. And so being able to document that efficiently combined with the efficiencies of reduced cost, and hopefully growing revenues through, you know, a system that can show your customer much more efficiently and effectively what’s going on and what their products are, makes them wanna come to you more. So If I had to put it in a nutshell, that’s it.

Perfect. And and, Susan, what what advice would you have for the buyer there as well?

I think advice for buyer is know what you if you’re looking to solve a challenge, it’s taking it across the organization and ensuring that what you’re putting in there is fit for purpose, that it can brew with you as a company, that it can solve the the problems that you’re facing as a company. Because if you’re trying to sort of go into a rigid sort of system, it means that you’re it sort of, like, stifles what you can do. And so if you’ve got a system such as AutoComply, which adapts, it’s flexible, it’s really easy to use, then it means that you can actually grow with it. And so you’re actually you’re building your organization.

You’re making your organization more efficient rather than having to sort of, like, fit yourself into it. You know, it’s that square peg and around whole business. So it’s about making sure that the system is fit for purpose. It’ll meet the challenge that you have, and it’ll bring it’ll make your life easier rather than you actually sort of having the need to develop the system sort of dictates what you’re doing.

Make sure that when it’s going down on the factory floor, that the people on the floor can actually use it because that’s the bit that you’ll fall over at. You can have the best system in the world, but if it’s really difficult to use and your people on the floor don’t use it, nobody’s it’s not gonna go anywhere. That’s not gonna help anyone. You’ll never get any trends or data out of it. So those are the type of things that I was gonna suggest that you look for.

Yeah. That that frontline engagement is okay as well, you know, the adoption. I think that’s a point to be made about auto compliance, that usability piece. You know, we’ve always been driven by what our customers are doing in the industry, and we kind of pride ourselves on that usability and being able to generate this report to be able to capture that data as you want to capture that data.

But yeah. I absolutely agree with that. And so I think that’s we’re coming to the end of the time we have today for the actual discussion. We’re gonna move into a q and a segment of the webinar now.

And before we jump into the q and a, Emily, Kristen, or Susan, is there anything that you want to be want to say before we sign off?

I I just wanna thank the folks at AutoComply for what they’ve done for us and, providing that system out there and, something that’s made us much better. And, it’s your approach combined with your system that allowed us to choose you years ago, and the the journey that we’ve gone on since then, has reinforced for me that we made the right decision.

So Thank you.

And it’s it’s a pleasure for us working with your team and working with your team. So it looks like that’s been yeah. We’ve learned a lot from you as well. So we have and so, yeah, we thoroughly enjoy working with Cisco.

I think there’s something to be said as well, the involvement from both parties. You know You know, we’re very, very keen to to help Cisco grow and and optimize their processes and and vice versa. And so, you know, it’s been a it’s been a great collaboration today. And I only came in halfway through the collaboration, and I know it’s been been great so far.

So, Amy, you’ve captured, hopefully, some questions in the chat there and some from our questionnaire. And do you wanna start going through some of the questions for the panel? And and then if you wanna segment them, the ones from for auto compliance, the ones for Cisco, if if it made it clear, who’s it for, and and then we can we can go from there.

We had a few in the chapter from Saip and James. They were focused on the benefits of the system. So I think we should follow-up those after in a bit more detail, but, hopefully, you guys have covered a lot of the benefits there throughout the session anyway. So I’ll start into those that came from the questionnaire.

There’s one for Cisco to start off with. How did you get sign off from higher ups to move forward with this? Did AutoComply help you build a use case? I feel at times it’s us versus them. They’re still viewing this as a call center.

So a couple of things. When you’re looking at a a call center, one of the things that you wanna make sure that you can demonstrate to people that are buying off on a new technology or those in the organization that are buying off on a new technology is just that, the cost efficiency of And the ability to demonstrate the ability, or the ability to demonstrate what you are doing and to make it done much more cost efficiently is, one of the biggest selling points that we had with this system. And, you know, I I was able to relatively easily sell a system, of electronic data versus what we were doing manually because it’s much more efficient to do it that way.

But the system that was flexible and allowed us the most efficiency for the cost, was the one that won the day. So, you know, that ability, was what sold the higher ups on the system. So you’ll get some pushback on that. It’ll be like, well, you know, we’re already spending this amount of money on the people and everything.

And so why should I spend more on this platform? And you’ve gotta demonstrate to them from a cost efficiency standpoint. For instance, I can do this four times faster.

That easily gets the eyes of the folks above you that look at it and say, well, hey. If we can do it four times faster with this system, that means that, you know, I’m that much more efficient. And so it demonstrates the cost efficiency of the whole process.

That’s how you sell it. That’s how you sell it above.

And I think there’s something to be said there as well before you go on, Amy. And, you know, auto comply, you know, it’s important that your vendor helps the use case.

And so anytime you’re trying to sell to the executive team, you know, I would always rely on the vendor to to present that data to you. Like, Lauren talked about the the operational efficiencies before times increase in audit usage, for example. You know, it’s up to the the vendor to collaborate with the customer. You know, you don’t need the custom part and all that process because, obviously, we’re we’re here to help each other. So I would always bring the vendor into the the the the presentation or the or the conversation to really provide that additional material or or back up the the evidence and critical data. Absolutely.

And then on top of that, one of the things that, you know, is is vital about the audit compliance system is a security component of it. And you’ll have times that where you may have an issue around security that, you know, has a breach on one side that this system can cover for. And, you know, that’s more of a an immediate type situation. You probably don’t have to sell that when it does occur, but, you know, that’s something to think about. Manual records aren’t nearly as secure as this system is.

Perfect. Great answers, guys. And that was actually a question that had come on more so directed at auto comply.

What do you do to ensure security and confidential confidentiality, sorry, of our data? This is one of the reasons we haven’t gone fully digital.

So you kind of answered that for us there, Norlin, if you wanted to I’ll just yeah.

I’ll just touch on that a wee bit as well. So, you know, we we do work with very highly regulated organizations where the data security is just of the utmost importance, you know. And from, like, the working of Cisco and, you know, the United Kingdom Accreditation Services, Shell Oil and Gas, you know, these are these are big companies with a lot of data and very sensitive data, and and that’s one of the reasons we are also ISO twenty seven thousand and one certified.

Perfect. Thank you. And we just question in the chapter from Chantel Woody, and it actually aligns with another one we got in the questionnaire regarding do auto comply work with customers other than food and beverage customers or other customers other than Cisco? Do we reach in the different industries?

Yeah. So I think I mentioned in the intro there. So you know and, Susan, feel free to jump in at any point as well. And, you know, we work with a number of industries from oil and gas, legal, finance, manufacturing, and so on. And but food and beverage is where we started. And but because of the the high level of flexibility, scalability, and customization that we’ve talked about in the platform, we can easily adopt different environments to meet specific needs of the customer and and that particular industry.

And we’re working sorry. And we do work with retail teams and things like that.

So, yeah, it is as Richard said, that that ability to go across different functions and different industries, but because of the flexibility of the system makes it easy.

Perfect.

I’ll go for another one towards Cisco.

So you’ve mentioned how long you’ve mentioned twenty five sites. How long did that take to roll out? We are a similar size and are currently evaluating a couple of vendors, but we’re not too sure where to start.

So, our venture took several years, the reason it took several years was our fault, not audit compliance fault.

And and when I say it was our fault, it it was were a benefit of that fault, but the fault was we purchased a bunch of small companies that had their own ERP systems. And, so when you do that, you’re bringing a bunch of unlike companies together underneath one organization. And so the ability to get something equally deployed across that system is not as easy as if perhaps it was owned sites that Cisco had already had under one system. If it was owned sites under one system, I could have done it in less than a year.

But because I had all these different systems, it took, several years to do it. It would have been, actually, to tell you the truth, a matter of months, to get it deployed if the systems were all the same, but they weren’t.

Perfect. Thank you. And so more so for us auto comply ones, how well can the platform integrate with existing systems? I’m sure you can relate to this as well.

Yep. So and I’ll take this one then, Susan. So we offer customizable, you know, integration solutions and robust APIs, webhook support, and we also offer the compatibility of file format, different structures, and support single sign on. And and the the platform is quite versatile in that tool. And when it comes to to talking to different systems and connecting with your infrastructure, you know, we currently integrate with a range of platform like ERP and epicore, you know, all the way through to data visualization tools like Power BI. So there really isn’t a limit in order to comply with what you can and want to connect with. It really comes down down to whether you want to to push or pull information, and we work with you in terms of how that data is presented.

Yeah. So we have an open API that allows us to integrate with, as Richard says, their ERP, CRM system, your master data systems, anything like that can actually be feeding into the system. And then we also then on the other side, we are working where we’re feeding our data that has been captured in our system and the data warehouses and the data analytics tools as well. So, yeah, it’s very easy to integrate. It just depends on what level you wanna go in at and how much integration you wanna do.

Thank you.

This one is for Cisco. So what are some of the SQF interview questions that auditors tend to ask employees? I’m trying to prepare the crew for this portion of the audit.

So I’m gonna let Emily ask that on a specific, you know, side. But, yeah, I’m a turn it over to you, Emily. I I’m I haven’t experienced that at my level.

So, usually, SQF, auditors don’t ask specific questions related to audit comply, but they do ask, for example, they they may interview a receiver, and they may ask, you know, what is it that you do? And then the receiver would have to walk that auditor through kinda like that process, including the documentation. So that would be including how they would put that into audit comply, what kind of, information that they will record, and it’s easy because it’s all there for them. Right?

And even if they’re demoing let’s say they’re in the middle of a receiving product and they’re demoing that to the auditor, they I know for a fact that they won’t be able to miss any information because they won’t be able to submit it unless all that information’s there. So I could just stand back, let that receiver talk to the auditor. And, usually, the auditor is very receptive of, you know, using this type of technology as long as you train that employee to be able to answer the question, you know, correctly according to your SOP and what it is that you require for them to, record.

Thank you, Emily. And This question for autocomply kind of falls into another question we’ve just received in the chat there. So Olo has asked how tailored the system is to cater for BRCGS version nine, and another question in questionnaire is what standards are managed in the system? So I’ll let you take that, Richard or Susan.

Susan, I can answer that, and then I’ll I’ll let you jump in as well. And, you know, we offer a wide range of of, you know, templates and workflows that kinda meet the requirements of any standard and from the RCF, the Shunite, PISMA, and EHS, ESG, cybersecurity, so on. That’s a beauty system. It can be really completely adapted and and and constructed in a way that that really suits you and what kind of the data you’re trying to to to capture and then report again. Yeah.

We actually started because we started our our life in food, we actually built we have a number of what we call grading engines. And so one of them is on the rules based grading engine that allow you that actually caters them for BRC. So it actually takes the answers to your questions and let you see where you’re gonna match, benchmark yourself against the BRC BS standard and see where you’re gonna come out with, same with SQS. So that’s that’s actually where we started life with with the BRC. So the system can handle that particular standard really well.

Yeah. That’s a good point. And so you can kinda be audit ready before any type of inspection or an external auditor because you can build those you can build those greatest schemes and scores with us using that just so you can actually see a true reflection of your compliance status against that particular standard in in your plan.

And this question rolls in on top of that again. So are the audit templates available in a library on auto comply, or do we have to build them ourselves? I know we’ve touched on that throughout.

Yeah. We offer prebuilt templates that you can utilize from, like, ISO to to, like, PRC and FQF and so on. But it’s likely, you know, they’ll have to be tailored to your specific organization and and those requirements.

You know, what we do do as part of the implementation is, you know, we’ll we’ll and replicate your your manner processes, your word documents, your paper documents, and we’ll try and build those workflows, those templates, and work with you to optimize them on auto comply. And this is the kind of the stage by stage offering that we offer as part of the implementation of our system.

This one is for our Cisco guests. So if I have a CCP, how do I ensure folks that record that information are well versed on deviation procedures? Does Autumnply help with this?

So that I’ll let Emily add to this one as well. But to me, that’s a training issue around making sure the individual is trained appropriately. The template’s gonna be set up in order to, you know, have the individual recording whatever whatever CCP it might be. For instance, metal detection or temperature monitoring or, you know, anything, along those lines.

The template will be set up so they have to monitor specific things. And if you turn it on or off, what they have to monitor. And so training the individual and then, making sure that they’ve done the template, and then the template will do the rest of the work for you from the standpoint of determining whether or not they actually put in credible data into the points where they needed to. So, you know, that’s just from a high level how I look at that question.

But I’ll let Emily, perhaps add to that from the standpoint of a specific that she’s been up against.

So I started rolling out audit comply from for the FSQA team first here at the site. It’s a lot easier to train individuals who already understand, you know, the importance of how to do certain checks.

Then slowly, I I would roll through the different departments. You know, I would start off in, like, the receiving and warehouse, then maybe I’ll move to the production room. Then then maybe even safety is kind of looking at this and and utilizing it at our facility as well too. But, yes, definitely a lot of training for the the the the operation team, a lot of kinda micromanaging the system a little bit in the first, you know, few months of them using it.

So, for example, if I know there’s gonna be an x amount of product being received in that day, I would go back and look at all the records to make sure that they actually put it in. And before they leave for the day, they would have to check-in with me to make sure that they did not miss something. And that goes with, you know, being able to take pictures of invoices. So they know that if they already completed this check-in in auto comply, then they can move that invoice, onto the next stage in in the process.

And same thing with some of our production checks or even our maintenance check.

I I we basically have a system in place where if there’s any type of work that needs to be done, I know about it ahead of time so I can kind of micromanage them being able to put that into the system so that we won’t have an issue with an auditor. But, yeah, a lot a lot of a lot of training and a lot of micromanaging.

You also have the ability to create response lists to in your CAPA sections where you can if it’s a if it’s a common situation that might happen, you have the ability to put a response in there for a drop down that they can select from that makes it a little more user friendly in those situations when so they know how to respond to things.

That’s fine. You’re kinda helping them with the right behavior.

Yeah. Yeah.

Pointing them in the right direction.

I think that’s all our questions for today. If you’re all happy enough, it’s great. Thank you, guys.

Okay.

Norlin, Krista, Emily, thank you very much for for joining us today. We we really value your input and and and for and just taking the time to give us all these insights and and and talk a bit about your experience with Oracle Fly. And we really, really appreciate it. And and hopefully, we can we can do another webinar like this soon.

But hopefully, the audience also saw the value in today’s conversation. And if anyone has any other questions, you know, feel free to drop it in. If you’ve got any other questions for the panel today, send them through to us, and then we’ll forward them onto the panel as well. And but, yeah, thank you again for for taking the time with us.

I know it’s quite early for you guys as well, so we really, really appreciate it.

Yep. And one more thing. Let me real quick. Like, I saw a question pop up real quick, like, it was around how do you keep track of what template happened when.

And there’s there’s actually, for the document registry that we use in SQF, there’s a a version of each individual template and the updated one. It’ll keep going on and on and on. And so you you actually have a document registry inside the system. So, anyway, I saw that one pop up.

So instead of having to respond back to it, I figured, why not? But, yeah, great.

Good good yeah. Good spot. Good spot. Okay.

And this Very much enjoyed it.

Y’all have a good one then.

Thank you. Looking forward to this meeting. Yeah.

Thanks very much, folks. Thanks, everyone.

Have a good day.

Bye bye. Bye bye.

Take care. Bye.

Bye bye.