Efficiency on the Menu
Ovation's updated platforms streamline productivity.
With four plants in four different locations in the North Island of New Zealand processing hundreds of sheep with multiple farmers and distributing premium lamb to supermarkets and food service providers around the globe, 52 weeks a year – it's an understatement to say Ovation New Zealand Limited has a lot on their plate.
The Cohorts have been supporting Ovation for over a decade, initially developing their bespoke Notebook platform for booking in processing at their plants and aligning systems to create more efficiencies throughout the business. However, as time progressed and technology became increasingly advanced, there was an opportunity to enhance and rethink the original portal.
In 2022, Ovation Procurement Manager Hylton Bayliss approached The Cohorts with a challenge: redesign the farmers portal and implement a more improved user-friendly system to encourage more uptake and usage. It was imperative that the portal captured vital data for Ovation for business forecasting and for the information to be accessible and useful for the farmers.
The Cohorts began with a new wireframe and design incorporating a product brand refresh, developing and building both the front and back end to integrate with plant management and Ovation's financial systems. The software and integrations required very complex and clever thinking, with the team developing out-of-the-box solutions resulting in a solution fit for purpose, ensuring the systems were talking to each other.
With such a massive undertaking, Project Manager and Business Analyst, Satvir Kaur and The Cohorts agreed to launch the portal and integrations in stages, allowing The Cohorts and Ovation to test and release into the production environment when they were ready.
The result is a progressive web application (PWA) that can handle supplier commitments, weekly allocations, plant shift scheduling across all four plants, and carrier notifications while documenting supplier and processing history. All information is captured and data shared from just one platform without the need for Excel pivot tables and the uploading and downloading of data.
"Customised systems mean much more complexity, and The Cohorts collaborate to deliver products and integrations offering a selection of services to choose from. I would really recommend them to other organisations looking for bespoke solutions."
Satvir Kaur
Project Manager & Business Analyst - Ovation
Farmers are busy people and are rarely, if ever, at a desk. So, the platform needs to be simple to navigate and use via mobile when remote. The Cohorts and Ovation are monitoring and adapting systems and making improvements as user feedback comes to hand to create a better experience, continually increasing the portal's uptake.
The Cohorts expert Web Developer Ben Sims and Director Reuben Reid helped deliver the extensive project and continue to support Ovation with ongoing maintenance and refinements, ensuring Ovation continues to serve up the world's best quality lamb to more tables around the globe.
It was a great experience with The Cohorts team, as they were on hand to work on the challenges we had during the project and were responsive to any issues and questions we had.
Project Manager & Business Analyst - Ovation