New module delivers efficiency boost in transport
How can you prepare and deliver 70.000 meals every day? By relying on a strong team of dedicated employees and flexible software that keeps everything on track. That is the strength of the collaboration between Deliva and Claerhout Computer Engineering. Since the end of last year, Deliva has also been working with the latest module, LISA Truck. “A breath of fresh air.”
Deliva was founded in 1987. It started as a small catering business in Hasselt and, thanks to the owners’ focus on taste and quality, steadily gained more customers. Today, it has grown into a company with around 500 employees, spread across several locations. “The group now consists of four companies, each with its own specialization, but operating as one big family,” says IT manager Alato Di Martino. “Deliva produces ready-made meals, Umami is the catering company, Home Delivery delivers meals to people’s homes, and Clean Minds groups our maintenance services.” Together, they employ nearly 500 people.
Alato Di Martino (Deliva): “Since LISA, everyone automatically receives the information they need to perform their job as well as possible.”
Tightly organized operations
In Deliva’s production kitchen in Genk, a top team works hard every day to create tasty, healthy, and innovative meals. Thanks to sous-vide pasteurization, taste, color, and vitamins are preserved. “We prepare approximately 70.000 meals a day,” calculates Di Martino. A tightly organized operation is therefore essential. “Especially since we serve both B2B and B2C customers and prepare both hot and cold meals.” The conductor of this daily performance is a lady, LISA, the software from Claerhout Computer Engineering (CCE). The collaboration between Deliva and CCE goes back many years.
Tom Kerryn, responsible for logistics and transport at Deliva, sees this as a major advantage. “It means they know our processes inside and out, and we only need a single point of contact to keep our operations running smoothly.”
In the production kitchen in Genk, a top team works every day on 70.000 meals.
LISA brings efficiency and peace of mind
When asked about the key strengths of the software, Di Martino does not hesitate. “LISA was developed with the food industry in mind. You can feel that in everything. It makes all the data we produce clearly visible. In the past, it was scattered across various Excel tables and a lot of paper circulated in production. That takes time and remains prone to errors. Since LISA, everyone automatically receives the information they need to perform their job as efficiently as possible. If we still need other specific digital tools, LISA can easily integrate with them, as is the case with our web application where customers can order meals. Moreover, LISA works exactly the way we want it to. Over the years, CCE has developed various optimizations and small automations. For example, the visualizations on the touchscreens in production run on LISA. These details ensure that today we can deliver every meal to the right place at the right time.”
“LISA was developed with the food industry in mind. You can feel that in everything. It makes all the data we produce - of which there is a lot - clearly visible.”
Efficiency boost with the LISA Truck App
Recently, a new module was added: the LISA Truck App. An addition that Deliva was more than happy to adopt. They have been using it live since December. “For collecting and registering returnable packaging, we previously used another program on PDAs. It was an offline system, which meant that both the order pickers who prepared the meals and the drivers who returned the empty packaging had to upload all data each time. Collecting the correct signatures was always a hassle, and we had no visibility into the progress of our drivers during their routes,” Kerryn explains.
With the LISA Truck App on tablets, this administrative burden is now a thing of the past. “A breath of fresh air. We can now monitor drivers’ status online. When they drop off or pick up returnable packaging, it is immediately visible in the system. Quality control has also been added: for each transport, we can monitor whether the correct temperatures were maintained.”
With the LISA Truck App on the tablet, administrative hassle is a thing of the past. A breath of fresh air. We can now track the status of the drivers online.
Continuous improvement
An investment that Deliva has not regretted for a single second. “LISA improves every year,” says Di Martino. “The module is very user-friendly. Our drivers are satisfied because it is more convenient and pleasant to work with.”
For monitoring as well, Di Martino only sees advantages. “For some customers, we deliver directly into the refrigerator. If there is no space, drivers take a photo, and that proof is automatically linked to the correct customer, order, and route. This way, everything is always well organized.”
When they drop off or pick up returnable packaging, it is immediately visible in the system.