Kennedy’s Bakery Production reports on how Jackson’s Bakery was able to successfully overhaul its IT systems to allow it to take on a new project that represented a 30% rise in production and distribution requirements. 

Jackson’s Bakery (part of the William Jackson’s Food Group – WJFG) has been a UK-based supplier of sandwich bread for over 100 years. In 2021 it had signed an ambitious long-term deal to supply a significant UK convenience retailer with its own label sliced bread range. However, this new deal represented a significant uplift of around 30% in production and distribution requirements and Jackson’s legacy IT systems would be unable to cope with this new level of business growth. 

In order to meet the demands of the new deal, Jackson’s quickly realised it would need to undergo a transformation project to overhaul its existing technology and supply chain.  

Working in partnership with Columbus, Jackson’s selected a new integrated Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management ERP solution to act as its technology backbone. This proved vital to enable the company to modernise key processes throughout the business – from order to invoice, including procurement, EDI automation, advanced forecasting, production planning, material consumption and despatch. 

The scope of the project was huge. The new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platform implementation needed to be deployed and go-live in parallel with the introduction of a new distribution and fulfilment centre, an extensive programme of factory refurbishments, to enable the needed capacity ramp-up and significant new product development and product launches. 

Despite ongoing issues due to the Covid-19 pandemic and supply chain disruptions, the implementation needed to be complete before commencement of the new supply contract began. This left Columbus and Jackson’s with a non-negotiable hard deadline – a challenge at any time for a business-wide ERP implementation, let alone for a project that needed to constantly adjust its scope in line with the wider manufacturing and supply chain changes that were happening at the time. 

Overcoming restrictions 
Given the pandemic restrictions that were in place at the time of the project, both Columbus and Jackson’s needed to adapt their approaches to meet the demands of the project, harnessing a hybrid approach to design, development and deployment, which allowed for a greater amount of parallel customisation and testing. Everything from analysis workshops and proof of concept sessions, through to testing and cutover support, needed to be done remotely. 

“These remote sessions generated an increased blurring of lines between customer and support partner, which forged the strong ‘one team’ collaborative working bonds that remain today,” said Jodie Derbyshire, Head of IT Change Programmes at William Jackson Food Group 

The project was able to go live at the start of March 2021 and was completed on time and on budget. 

Transitioning over to the new system, managing an intense hyper-care period before ramping up manufacture and supply to be launch ready was a significant undertaking and Jackson’s has been continually developing it since initial installation. The new efficiencies, business intelligence and continuous improvements from the platform will also enable Jackson’s to play its part in helping WJFG achieve net-zero emissions across its entire supply chain by 2040. 

By overhauling its core systems and implementing Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management, Jackson’s has been able to:  

• Modernise core processes from order to invoice, including procurement, EDI automation, advanced forecasting, production planning, material consumption and despatch. 

• Create a solid technology backbone on which to launch its new business. 

• Gain from new efficiencies which will help contribute to William Jackson Food Group’s (WJFG) net-zero supply chain emissions target by 2040. 

• Successfully implement a modern solution that helped the company secure a multi-year deal. 

Following on from the success of this transformation project, WJFG is keen to roll out further projects to its other food service businesses alongside Columbus. This includes a joint ‘analysis’ phase to cover all the WJFG businesses in scope, with the plan to then roll out the core ERP sequentially with further potential pilots for commerce and customer engagement capabilities. 

Editorial contact:
Editor: Kiran Grewal kgrewal@kennedys.co.uk