Eka’s new tech-enabled solutions address complexities across agri-food supply chains

27 Oct 2020 --- Eka Software Solution has unveiled a suite of solutions to digitize supply chains for commodity and raw material businesses. Manav Garg, CEO and founder of the cloud commodity management platform, observes the myriad complexities in global agri-food sourcing and trade and details case studies of how Eka’s technologies may help companies adapt.

Eka’s solutions for upstream supply chains were created to help agri-food companies automate logistics, improve utilization of assets and gain real-time visibility into material movement, inventory and quality.

“Our extensible cloud platform hosts robust application-based solutions for supply chain, trading and risk, direct material procurement, and financial management and advanced analytics. These help companies prepare for their future growth,” Garg tells FoodIngredientsFirst.

“As digitalization continues to disrupt commodity supply chains, Eka’s robust and flexible solutions let businesses quickly adapt to changing needs, offering a solution today for the challenges of tomorrow.”Eka’s solutions leverage IoT, AI, machine learning and 3D modeling to deliver an integrated view across the commodities lifecycle. 

Complexities in agri-food sourcing and trade
Today’s agri-food commodities and raw materials are most often sourced, stored, shipped, transformed – and ultimately bought and sold across multiple borders. 

“Planning and executing the movement of goods across geographies has become increasingly fractured, not only by trade and tariff difficulties but by increased regulations and shifting consumer demand,” details Garg.

Multiple systems for handling origination, handling and processing often pose issues across the global value chain. “Most organizations handling raw materials rely on disparate and disconnected systems,” says Garg. 

In this context, Garg flags there is little support for complex business processes. “Raw materials still move from production to storage to transport with little insight. 

That’s a problem – particularly as consumers demand more visibility into how goods are sourced and produced, and sustainability measures increasingly value companies.”

A need to streamline collaboration
Market behaviors and price fluctuations are often invisible, leaving data capture prone to errors and where audit trails are non-existent, notes Garg.

“As goods move through the supply chain, transport logistics and capacity are difficult to optimize, and processing capabilities remain opaque,” he adds.

Enabling every participant across the supply chain to collaborate more efficiently is critical to supply chain resiliency, Garg underscores. 

“In commodities markets, those roles and responsibilities are distributed across the supply chain where raw materials are farmed, refined and processed, stored and shipped, traded and consumed.”

“Keeping suppliers and producers connected across multiple touchpoints is difficult – especially in remote or rural locations where digital infrastructure is spotty, and people are performing most of their collaborative tasks via a smartphone.”Market behaviors and price fluctuations are often invisible, leaving data capture prone to errors and where audit trails are non-existent.

An integrated cloud platform
Eka’s solutions leverage IoT, AI, machine learning and 3D modeling to deliver an integrated view across the commodities lifecycle. 

“We deliver an integrated cloud platform and specific solutions to help companies plan and execute the movement of goods across the trading value chain with a granular view at every step of the agri-supply chain,” says Garg.

Eka’s supply chain solutions include a global trade and logistics program that tracks and optimizes the movement of raw materials across multi-modal transportation – truck, rail, barge, bulk shipments and container vessels. Users can collaborate on a single platform with all counterparties to manage trade compliance, invoices, documents and trade finance.

Also, within the suite, Eka’s warehouse management system (WMS) is an end-to-end integrated solution to help businesses optimize their entire warehouse process from receipt to stock management across their distributed network of storage facilities. 

Expediting grain stocks management
Consumers today want to know the source of the food they consume. This is evidenced by Innova Market Insights’ newly unveiled Top Trend for 2021, “Transparency Triumphs.”

“Changing market models are also driving commodity companies to think differently,” Garg highlights.

“While trading agri-commodities, businesses must balance the demand for storage, capital, price discovery and overall management while building supplier and customer loyalty.” 

Enabling every participant across the supply chain to collaborate more efficiently is critical to supply chain resiliency, Garg underscores. As a proof of concept case study, Garg highlights Emerald Grains, among Australia’s largest grain marketer and supply chain operators, export”grains to over 35 countries worldwide.

The company was looking for an integrated solution that allows them to automate their entire grain handling operations.

Emerald Grains receives and outturns Australian grain from their network of up-country storage facilities in Victoria and New South Wales to their international customers through their Melbourne Port and other grain terminals across Australia. 

“Emerald Grain implemented Eka Supply Chain solutions for their bulk terminals and warehouses, which helped make their supply chain operations more robust and efficient,” says Garg. 

“They can now adjust to constant market changes and leverage opportunities with real-time visibility into their inventory, logistics and operations.”

With Eka’s CSM grain stock management system, Emerald Grain was able to efficiently manage its grain harvest, paying 98 percent of farmers within 24 hours of delivery. 

“It now also has an end-to-end visibility of its supply chain operations, and the system enables it to pivot its operations to take advantage of harvest changes – this is a real competitive edge,” notes Garg.

“To help the agri-industry overcome these challenges, we intend to continue investing in our platform to introduce end-to-end agri-cloud solutions that provide integrated planning and transparency across the supply chain.”

By Benjamin Ferrer