Nature’s One

The Company: About Nature’s One

Nature’s One, a leader in organic nutrition for babies, kids, and moms, strives to exceed the formula industry’s strict regulatory standards by setting a higher standard for purity and nutrition. In order to continue to uphold this reputation, the company had to move away from the hodgepodge of solutions available to them, including separate programs for accounting and finance. 

The Situation: Complete Solution

Nature’s One could no longer rely on spreadsheets or disparate files for inventory, ingredients, and purchasing information. They needed a complete solution that eliminated the long paper trail and lack of visibility that its legacy system created. And with a pledge for purity in contents, quality, sourcing, and testing, the company wanted a solution that could keep up with its mission and purpose, as well as regulatory requirements, without being bogged down by bolt-on customizations. 

These were not easy requirements to fulfill, but Nature’s One found everything it needed and more in Deacom ERP. 

The Solution: Deacom ERP

Ultimately, Nature’s One selected Deacom ERP because it is designed to eliminate the need for bolt-ons without requiring a compromise in systems. Deacom brings all vital information – from supply chain to inventory and everything in between – into one system. Instead of wasting time manually searching for items that could be anywhere in its facility, Deacom now enables Nature’s One to easily track every item received, its source, and where it is being stored. Nature’s One began implementation in January 2012 and was fully live just five months later in May with minimal disruptions to operations during the process. 

Deacom helps Nature’s One uphold high-quality control standards to ensure optimal product purity and nutrition, which includes the confirmation that heavy metals, such as arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury are not found in its products. While many of these metals are naturally occurring in the environment, Nature’s One goes to great lengths to keep them out. The company frequently sanitizes its entire high-tech infant formula facility to ensure quality. Additionally, it is mandatory for each employee to constantly wash hands when moving through designated hygiene junctions and wear specially laundered uniforms and shoes that are kept in the facility and never worn outside.

This is the extra step the company takes to protect the workspace from environmental contaminants that could be inadvertently introduced to the high hygiene environment inside the facility. Nature’s One also conducts daily internal quality control tests to ensure the company maintains its highest purity standards in the industry. With the help of Deacom, the manufacturer can efficiently track, pinpoint and isolate the source of any issue so that actions can be taken to rectify the issue before it enters the ingredient stream in production. 

In addition, Nature’s One uses Deacom to keep track of critical information within its manufacturing lines, which includes the materials used, such as cans, lids, scoops, powders, and labels. Deacom has helped reduce the risk of human errors through the use of scanners throughout the facility, which records complete information for traceability purposes. This also ensures only the intended materials and quantities are used every time. All this information flows back into Deacom in real-time, providing Nature’s One with quick access to records of every transaction. 

Nature’s One has benefited from Deacom being developed for the process manufacturing industry and without using bolt-ons or customizations, which are often costly and create compatibility issues. When businesses implement Deacom ERP, they have access to every functionality available by the ERP provider – and whenever new capabilities are released, all Deacom users have access to the new features as well. This was particularly appealing to Nature’s One as its industry and regulatory requirements are constantly evolving. 

After experiencing a server crash at its facility in 2019, Nature’s One made the decision to invest in Deacom ERP’s Managed Cloud Services (MCS). This server crash brought the business to a complete halt for two days and also lost an entire day’s worth of financial data due to the timing of the backup schedule. Since implementing MCS, Nature’s One is now able to provide a higher level of system reliability and accessibility to users. The company has also been able to eliminate its dependency on a locally installed version of Deacom ERP while still offering users the same level of access to critical information no matter where they are located. Griffith also notes that his company has ​“less security risks and processes run much faster, thereby providing management with more timely reporting.” 

The Nature’s One team evaluated other cloud services but ultimately decided that using the same vendor for cloud and ERP was the best decision. ​“It just made sense. Now we only have to contact one team for assistance, which greatly shortens the response time to solve the issue. Since migrating, the service has been very smooth, and we have not experienced any significant downtime issues,” said Griffith. 

The Results: Deacom ERP Implementation Benefits

Without Deacom, Nature’s One would require a much bigger accounting team to manually handle the high volume of raw ingredients and supply inventory that currently comes into the processing facility and continues to increase on an hourly basis. To just keep up with all of the mandatory regulatory work, the manufacturer would have needed to double or triple its staff. 

As Nature’s One expands its facility to include ​“shelf-ready” packaging, Deacom is already able to accommodate this growth. Using the ERP, Nature’s One is able to instantly identify the precise location of an ingredient or item. This eliminates the potential of wasting valuable time manually locating an item in its vast warehouse. 

Equally as important, Deacom ERP is helping Nature’s One uphold and manage its regulatory compliance set by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Deacom provides the visibility to track and trace each ingredient
from the moment it enters the facility as a raw ingredient through its shipment as a finished good. Whether sent to a distributor, individual retailer or directly to a consumer’s home through its B2C website, Deacom offers complete visibility every time. 

“Deacom helps maintain our commitment to purity and product safety, which our consumers expect. Instead of scouring a spreadsheet for information, the ERP allows us to get what we need exactly when we need it. This allows us to achieve full traceability and visibility into our operation without compromise,” added Griffith.