Collaborative article: Ifnu Wardhana, Manager of Chicken Slaughterhouse (RPA) of PT Widodo Makmur Unggas Tbk and Khoirul Murtadlo, Data Analyst Manager, PT Pasir Tengah
Traceability is a term that may not be too unfamiliar to some people. Currently, there is serious attention from consumers to agricultural and livestock products that are not only quality, but also accountable, for example, providing proper treatment to farm animals. This encourages agricultural and livestock industry players to apply traceability practices for each product produced to answer these challenges.
In simple terms, traceability is a tracing and recording activity carried out on the movement of products in a process chain. This is important because it is related to the added value of a product and the guarantee of safety when consumed by consumers.
PT Widodo Makmur Perkasa Tbk (IDX: WMPP or WMP) through its subsidiaries PT Pasir Tengah and PT Widodo Makmur Unggas Tbk (IDX: WMUU or WMU) applies traceability up to RPH (Slaughterhouse) for cattle (Traceability to the Abattoir), and up to consumers for poultry (Traceability to the Customers) . Through this step, the Company can provide the best quality assurance for consumers that can be traced from upstream to downstream.
In WMP cattle farming, for example, traceability involves technology. The company records the history of fattening cattle from the time the cow arrives from the port until it is sent to the RPH through RFID (Radio-Frequency Technology) scanning that has been attached to the cow's ear since it was shipped from the country of origin, for example Australia. From RFID scanning, we can get information on cow arrival date, weight growth progress, fattening age, treatment during the fattening process, and other information.
For poultry, the Company carries out an traceability process ranging from live birds (LB) to poultry products to customers. This can be done because the live chickens / LB that are cut come from internal and external farms that have gone through the supplier audit process . The production process is recorded correctly, neatly documented, and ensured the completeness of the data. The Traceability to the Customers process can be carried out 100% in accordance with Company standards, which is less than 2 hours.
In general, both cattle and poultry, the Company gets many benefits from the implementation of traceability carried out such as:
- Ensure that all poultry and beef products are safe and healthy for consumption, in accordance with predetermined certification standards, including NAIL and Mouth Disease FREE (FMD) and bird flu.
- Speed up the mitigation process if something untoward happens, such as product damage, and others.
- Prevent unnecessary overruns of operational costs, in the event of an incident of beef or poultry products.
- Maintaining customer trust that will have an impact on the sustainability of the Company's business.
- Treating cattle and poultry in accordance with established regulations, thereby reducing the number of torture of farm animals.
- Guaranteed high accuracy of data because the data is retrieved and processed digitally.
- Increase time and place efficiency, and speed up the decision-making process because detailed data is captured and processed digitally.
- Increase the level of worker safety and lower cow stress because there is no direct physical contact between workers and cows.
In the application of traceability, the Company also encountered a number of diverse challenges. At the site (internal) level, for example, the Company needs to ensure that the staff on duty is able to carry out appropriate identification and corrective actions. This stage is important because they are the ones who are at the forefront of ensuring that all issues can be addressed early, especially related to supply chains. In addition, the ability to obtain, analyze, and process data is also very crucial, so that it can provide suggestions regarding appropriate mitigation measures.
At the external level, for example, providing an understanding of the importance of traceability is also not easy. The main challenge is the mindset to Human Resources (HR) in the related RPH-RPH. The Company also continues to provide understanding, knowledge and training (if any) regarding the importance of traceability, from previously using manual recording to digital recording (via RFID) as has been done internally by the Company.
To ensure that traceability is applied consistently, internally the Company also refreshes every year. PT Widodo Makmur Unggas Tbk, for example, conducts traceability simulations at least once every 1 year and has been stated in the Company's SOP. Related employees are required to have up to 100% traceability in less than 2 hours. If the standard is not reached, then the simulation is declared a failure, and it must be re-performed.
That's a glimpse of the importance of traceability in the livestock industry. To encourage traceable livestock products, of course the Company needs support from various parties. This support can be provided, for example, only purchasing products from companies that have national or international standard food safety certifications, and are committed to traceability practices. PT Widodo Makmur Perkasa Tbk (WMP) is one of the leading cattle and poultry companies that can be the partner of choice for the Indonesian people.
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About the Author
Ifnu Wardhana is the Manager of Chicken Slaughterhouse (RPA) at PT Widodo Makmur Unggas Tbk who has joined since December 2019. The 39-year-old man has a hobby of shadow puppetry, koi carp, old motorcycle, and has big dreams as an entrepreneur in the poultry field.
Khoirul Murtadlo is a Data Analyst Manager at PT Pasir Tengah. The man who is familiarly called Khoirul, besides being busy at work, also always spends time with his family. For him, family is a very important thing that is his passion for life.