Marel is a leading global provider of advanced food processing equipment, systems, software and services to the poultry, meat and fish industries. With around 7,000 employees located in over 30 countries, the company enables its customers to increase yield and throughput, ensure food safety and traceability, and improve sustainability in food production.
With CONTACT Elements, the company ensures end-to-end traceability of product master data for its highly configurable products, generating company-wide added value.
Back in 2020, Marel began the Digital Product Highway project as a cornerstone in its revamped IT architecture to improve access to key product data across the lifecycle and to streamline operational processes. “For an innovative company like Marel, product data is the core,” explains Marcel Triepels, Enterprise Architect at Marel. “That’s why we invest a lot to keep increasing the availability and quality of data.”
The rapidly growing company faces the challenge of connecting its diversified IT systems and strategic business application across domains and locations and avoiding data silos. With Elements as its central IT platform, Marel now benefits from a smooth interaction of its systems, processes and actors along its value networks. All relevant product data are available at the required location at all times and are automatically synchronized with the ERP and third-party systems. This creates transparent and consistent data records for faster and more efficient delivery and production of products.
“With the modular CONTACT Elements platform, we leverage the potential of the Digital Thread throughout the lifecycle of our products and bring company-wide added value,” says Triepels.
