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Kohberg Bakery Group: Cutting 10,000 Hours of ERP Reporting with Novacura Flow

5 min to read

Kohberg Bakery Group is Denmark’s largest family-owned bakery, operating three major production facilities (Bolderslev, Taastrup, and Haderslev) with approximately 460 employees.

With consumption nearing 10 tons of raw materials every hour and a production schedule running 365 days a year, their need for precise, real-time data is critical. 

Their manufacturing processes are high-volume, necessitating precise control over raw material usage and quality assurance. Their primary goal was to move beyond “orderless production”—where all reporting was done after the fact- to a system that provided accurate, real-time manufacturing data for immediate visibility and improved procurement decisions. 

The shift to an order-based production model required accurate, real-time reporting, which posed new challenges for integrating shop floor processes within the existing Infor M3 ERP system. 

By implementing a customized, mobile-first solution built on the Novacura Flow low-code platform, Kohberg shifted from fragmented, delayed reporting to real-time operations, achieving dramatic efficiency gains and providing the purchasing department with trustworthy data for the first time. 

The Challenge

The Complexity Problem

Kohberg’s existing workflow for production reporting within their Infor M3 ERP was designed for administrative users, not for the “blue-collar” staff on the shop floor (bakers and packers). The resulting complexity led to a critical breakdown in data integrity. The standard production reporting process in the ERP was highly cumbersome for “blue-collar” staff, requiring five distinct steps for every batch, which often had to be repeated hundreds of times daily.

Identify the correct planning group and production order. 

  1. Report the operation time spent.
  2. Report the finished stock put into the warehouse.
  3. Execute a separate material backflush transaction.
  4. Access and complete mandatory quality control checkpoints (like dough temperature or weight). 

In a single large facility, this amounted to around 798 production reports per day. The time commitment required for these manual, complex steps led to delays and inaccurate inventory figures. 

The backlog in reporting meant raw material consumption data was not updated in real-time. This caused inventory levels to be perpetually incorrect, making Material Requirements Planning (MRP) unreliable and compromising purchasing decisions. The reporting complexity was so severe that the client recognized the shift to the new, more efficient production process would be impossible to implement without a simplified reporting layer.

The Solution

Simplifying the Complex with Novacura Flow 

To solve this critical process breakdown, Kohberg partnered with Novacura to deploy a low-code solution using Novacura Flow. The goal was to remove unnecessary ERP complexity and tailor the user interface to the specific needs of the production operators. 

Mobile & Intuitive User Experience: 

  • Novacura Flow was deployed on industrial scanners and tablets across the production floor. The solution bypassed the labyrinthine M3 interface and delivered a clean, user-centric application where the user is guided through the process step-by-step. 

The transformation was achieved by: 

  • Process Automation: A single button press or scan in the Flow app now executes multiple underlying M3 transactions automatically (e.g., simultaneously logging operation time, stock reporting, and quality checks). 
  • Context-Based Information: Operators only see the fields and options relevant to their current task—for example, a quality check screen only appears if mandatory controls are required for that specific recipe. If an action does not require user input, it is hidden. 
  • Standardized App: The Novacura Flow apps are standardized across all three bakery sites and all production and packing lines, ensuring consistency and ease of cross-training. 

The Results

Real-Time Data and 10,000 Hours Saved

By implementing Novacura Flow, Kohberg immediately achieved the real-time manufacturing reporting needed to support their new production model and reliably manage their high-volume raw material consumption.

 

     Metric

Before Novacura Flow (Native ERP)

After Novacura Flow

Improvement

Avg. Time Per Report

2 minutes 53 seconds

26 seconds

85% Reduction

Total Daily Time (for 798 reports/site)

33.69 hours

5.76 hours

~28 hours saved per day

Estimated annual savings across three factories total 10,000 hours, resulting in a significant increase in productivity.

 

Key Business Benefits

 

  • The time savings are staggering, but the strategic benefits of the Novacura Flow implementation extend further: 
  • Real-Time Data Accuracy: Purchasing and MRP teams now rely on correct, real-time raw material consumption data, preventing inventory shortages and misjudgments common under the previous reporting lag. 
  • Guaranteed Compliance: The app forces mandatory quality inspections (e.g., dough temperature measurements) to be performed at the correct time, ensuring 100% compliance with defined production processes and enhancing food safety. 
  • Enhanced Traceability: The quality data, which was previously captured manually on paper, is instantly recorded and linked to the production batch, dramatically improving traceability for audit and recall purposes. 
  • Workforce Flexibility: With a simplified, standardized interface across all three facilities and all lines, staff can be easily moved and trained, significantly increasing organizational agility. 

Summary

The challenge at Kohberg was not the ERP system itself, but the lack of an efficient layer to connect the ERP’s complexity with the practical needs of the workers. Novacura Flow provided that layer, allowing the bakery to adopt a modern production model while turning a laborious, time-consuming process into a fast, intuitive mobile workflow.

If you’re interested in the full customer case presentation, check out the video from the Annual M3 User Group Conference in Svendborg, Denmark, where Steven Ilg Hansen from Kohberg Bakery Group, together with Rayner Bröndrup and Adam Wojtyniak, shared how Novacura Flow simplifies ERP complexity. (Video in Danish.)

Table of contents
The Challenge The Solution The Results Summary

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