The Irish company Keelings has a 90-year history in the cultivation and trade of fruit and vegetables. Based on the wishes the company had to optimise and automate their business processes, the ERP software branch Keelings Knowledge was established five years ago.
Rick Rebergen, who has 18 years of experience in the marketing and sales of fresh produce software, has been appointed Business Improvement Manager to transfer his knowledge and that of Keelings to the rest of the market, initially focusing on the Benelux and Germany. “The company Keelings trades in 42 countries, and therefore knows which requirements good software should meet. The software is built based on exact demands and wishes from the fresh produce branch, and not from an IT point of view. That makes this package unique!”
“Keelings Knowledge’ approach is also renewing. With our IBR (Initial Business Revue) tool, we can review the company’s internal organisation on request, and we can analysis this by listing the weak points combined with recommendations to improve these. This leads to specific recommendations to using the software, which we clearly express in an amount to reach an ROI (Return on Investment). There are a number of critical process indicators that can differ per company and per country, and that way, we can approach the market in the most professional manner possible. That is an absolute advantage in this industry,” Rick says.
Proactive instead of reactive
“Another definite advantage is that we can make predictions in our system.
That’s not integrated now in current ERP software systems. Much is analysed
afterwards now, but the software from Keelings Knowledge is proactive rather
than reactive. For example, results can be decided and guarded in advance,
instead of seeing the result afterwards. After all, it’s all about
profitability,” Rick says. “This ERP package, called Keelings Business Knowledge
(KBS) is a complete solution, and can therefore be used by importers,
exporters, wholesalers, production (sorting and packing) and storage and
transfer companies. In the Netherlands, early adapters like Roveg and Jaguar
are already using the software from Keelings Knowledge.”
“The experience of Keelings in cultivation, processing and trade can be seen in the software. We work out the practices of fresh produce companies with them, work that into an appropriate ERP system. Efficiency and flexibility in KBS are of an unprecedented level. Keelings has worked for years to bring automation to the highest possible level within their own company, and now wants to share that with the market. For that, we offer a guaranteed implementation throughput time of three months, and we can support companies structurally during the change that’ll occur during the implementation of other ERP software. We offer a completely standardised solution, but the product will never be finished because the market is continually changing. But those changes will eventually also lead to improved software,” Rick says.
“Our Irish parent organisation has an amazing history, and has 2,100 employees nowadays. We would like to invite interested people to experience the ‘Keelings Experience’ in Dublin, where we’d like to show our 90-year industry experience in growing, processing, logistics, quality control, production (24×7), WMS, global trade and software. I think it’s a major challenge to share my experience with the organisation, and I’m completely driven to make this a success. I am therefore convinced that we’ll further build the automation software via the Benelux and Germany to a global fresh produce sector,” the Business Improvement Manager concludes.
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