Heartland Catfish was founded in 1995 when Tackett Fish Farms launched plans to process their own fish. Since then, Heartland Catfish has become one of the largest growers and producers of farmed Catfish in the United States. As a vertically integrated organization that owns the hatcheries, ponds, processing facility and distribution company, Heartland Catfish manages the supply from egg to harvest.
The Challenge
Prior to NorthScope, Heartland was using a combination of legacy systems, internally built applications, manual spreadsheets, and generic accounting software to manage its business. Wanting to streamline their business, Heartland was looking for a long-term partner they could depend on to help build out, implement, and develop a company-wide software platform that would not only meet the immediate requirements they had but also be a cost-effective system to grow with as their business grew and changed. Some key initiatives for Heartland throughout their NorthScope implementation were to provide simple and intuitive data entry for sales order and inventory while offering users more advanced features like automatic sale alerts and notifications to customers when orders were received and entered. Additionally, Heartland wanted to automate some repetitive and manual tasks such as integration with their shop floor system and integration with their fish ticket delivery system for paying farmers more accurately.
“NLP as an organization and NorthScope as a product has been a great partnership for us. The team we work with is very knowledgeable about our operations and the capabilities of their products so that we get very timely and helpful support when needed. We can call them with almost any problem, new line of business or any number of questions and they jump in to help us and get it solved. Over the years they’ve made a constant effort to keep us current on new technologies so that when we are ready, we can adopt these internally to help us do our jobs more efficiently."
The Approach
With these initiatives in mind, the NorthScope implementation began by mapping out the things NorthScope already did as well as any gaps for required features or reports that did not currently exist. The NLP team worked diligently to stay on budget while building out any requested features while training Heartland users in the ways of operating their new system. Additionally, NLP helped transition Heartland to NorthScope by migrating data from their legacy systems and spreadsheets to ensure that inventory and financials were balanced and matching and then transitioned users to the new system once each group signed off that all required features were ready in their new NorthScope system.
The Solution
Heartland’s initial NorthScope solution included the Sales Order and Logistics functional areas but has grown to include the Financial, Purchasing, Grower Accounting and Inventory functional areas as their business has grown, with plans to transition them off their generic accounting software in the near future to further streamline their operations. By understanding Heartland’s business, providing regular updates and new features, and keeping the technology current, the NorthScope solution adapts as Heartland’s business changes and has proven to be capable of managing the diversity and workload of Heartland and its various divisions. The NorthScope solution for Heartland has also included more consistent methods for integrating with third parties they use such as their shop floor system, EDI systems, and their incoming live fish scale.
The Results
With NorthScope, Heartland has been able to enter and audit more sales transactions with less staff than they could before, and they were able to build an integration with their shop floor system and fish ticket delivery scale system which has saved them 80% of their data entry time and saves them from bringing on new staff when their business increases. Additionally, with the help of NorthScope, Heartland’s sales staff on the road have web access. NorthScope also provides automatic alerts and reports that can be sent without a large amount of customization, and repetitive tasks have been automated through emails and automatically generated reports so that users inside and outside of the office can interact with the system.
Heartland Catfish had been relying on a combination of legacy systems, internally built applications, manual spreadsheets, and generic accounting software before turning to the Northlake Partners (NLP) (the team behind NorthScope), looking for a partner to help build out and implement a company-wide software platform that would provide simple and intuitive data entry for sales order and inventory while offering users more advanced features that would help automate repetitive and manual tasks. NorthScope provided all this and more through a combination of pre-existing features and features built out during implementation, allowing Heartland to streamline their business with a single solution starting in 2012.
Since then, Heartland Catfish has been able to:
- Save 80% of data entry time. Thanks to a NorthScope integration with their shop floor system and fish ticket delivery scale system, Heartland was able to save 80% of their data entry time.
- Increase automations and accuracy. NorthScope allowed Heartland to automate repetitive and manual tasks through integration with their shop floor system and with their fish ticket delivery system, allowing them to pay farmers more accurately. In addition to the automation of tasks, NorthScope provides automated sale alerts and notifications to customers when orders are received and entered.
- Grow their business with scalable software. As Heartland has acquired and taken on new lines of business, NorthScope’s current technology and cost-effective system has supported this growth and change. Additionally, NorthScope has helped Heartland’s efficiencies increase so that they can enter and audit more sales transactions with less staff than before and don’t need to bring on new staff as their business increases.
