A new free supply chain mapping service has been launched by food and drink software specialist QADEX, which is set to disrupt the market and revolutionise the way companies ensure the integrity of their increasingly global supply chains.
At a time when food fraud in the supply chain is increasing and costly product recalls caused by contaminated ingredients are rising, QADEX’s Supply Chain Mapper service (www.supplychainmapper.com) couldn’t be more timely. Unlike many other systems on the market, it is being offered FREE of charge for up to three years.
In recent years, the need for supply chain transparency has become critical. But, until now, it has been hard work and expensive to map your supply chains, sometimes involving resistance from those further up the supply chain. This challenge has been made more difficult by the complicated multiple mapping system platforms available and often complex charging structures involved.
In contrast, Supply Chain Mapper is completely free to use by everyone in the food and drink supply chain: from retailers and foodservice operator to manufacturers and farmers. It is based on easy-to-use, secure and scalable supply chain mapping software, which lets you map your supply chain – from farm to fork – and share your supply chain maps with your customers, thereby assisting with full ingredient traceability – without charge!
“One free industry-wide platform would mean that the whole supply chain can be mapped quickly for the benefit of all honest actors in the food supply chain,” said QADEX Managing Director Stephen Whyte.
Supply Chain Mapper comes packed full of useful features, with regular upgrades and extra functionality planned over coming months. Why pay to use others systems when you can have access to all of the following – free of charge!
- Map the full or part of the supply chain from your suppliers for all or some of your products, including multi-component processed foods
- Collaborate and share data with multiple customers
- Easily manage your own site and product profiles. Once updated, share with as many customers as you wish; with a facility to change the sharing settings at any time
- Extensive reports and analytics showing the status of all outstanding requests and with which customers you are sharing data
While most of Supply Chain Mapper’s modules are free to use, QADEX’s business model is to add some extra premium services in future as it continues to develop more system functionality on this platform. Although some customers may choose to purchase these premium services, it will be completely optional and QADEX aims to keep the basic supply chain mapping service free of charge for up to three years.
Coming soon will be an additional function that enables customer compliance data requirements for the EU’s Food Information for Consumers Regulation to be met. Another function being developed will enable users to update site certification and assurance status, with the ability to share this information with selected customers.
Supply Chain Mapper is easy to set up and use. To map your products you simply register on the site, set up your solution, adding your product details and, with the click of a mouse, supply chain maps are requested from the relevant suppliers – the system looks after everything else for you.
Following registration, users will automatically be enrolled in QADEX’s Training Academy, which gives them free access to an extensive array of training materials and the FAQ section of the Supply Chain Mapper website.
Supply chain maps enable ‘chain of custody’ mapping, in which users’ full supply chains can be seen in either chronological view or map view. A zoom function allows users to focus on supplier locations and countries of origin. Whether you are procuring ingredients directly or through agents and brokers, the system enables users to drill down to storage locations, right back to individual farmers and fishing vessels.