Development of a supply chain system to improve offal recovery in beef

Summary

Background
Offals are of significant interest to a number of Australia's export markets and can be a significant component of a processor's profit margin.
One area of potential benefit is providing accurate offal defect feedback that assists producers to address husbandry practices could potentially lead to improved total carcase values. The benefits of electronically capturing offal feedback include:improved producer/processor relationshipsimproved producer feedbackopportunity for payment adjustments based on offal qualitypossible reduction in labour of offal data collectionincreased offal defect reporting to AQIS and other reporting bodiesopportunity for improved husbandry practices to reduce defect levelspotential to increase the profitably of offalimproved offal volume planning by lower reject ratespotential to increase sales to key export markets by improving compliance to specificationsimproved industry knowledge on offal defect incidents and likely cause
Research -Development of a supply chain system to improve offal recovery in beef
This project at John Dee focused on the development of a data capture system for use by abattoir management, AQIS inspectors and suppliers to enable modification of management programs to improve offal compliance levels.
A review of commercial computer hardware products identified four potential suppliers that could meet the needs of the project.  A decision was made by abattoir management to produce the software to support the system due to:Previous problems integrating commercial products.Desire to maintain control of the software to enable future modification for improved performance.In house knowledge of software development.
Although testing of the system demonstrated the normal difficulties that are experienced with the implementation of any new system, the system generally received a positive reception from the AQIS inspectors entering the data. 
This system enabled abattoir managers to assess the amount of offal being packed, the effective marketing of product and the identification of both those cattle that are performing well and the beef producers that supply the best cattle.  Further, this system also allowed management to identify poor butchering processes and to take the necessary action to address these issues through modifications of infrastructure and staff training.
Outcomes
The project achieved its objective of developing a system for recording the reasons for offal non-compliance by AQIS inspectors and enabling this information to be utilised by abattoir management and suppliers to alter practices to improve production efficiency.
A case study is available, but the detailed report is confidential.