Discover the real-world impact of ALMADS on businesses just like yours
Here, we’ve compiled a collection of success stories and comments from our valued clients who have experienced the transformative benefits of implementing our solutions. These case studies showcase the versatility and effectiveness of ALMADS across various industries and business sizes. By exploring these stories, you’ll gain insights into how our clients have leveraged ALMADS to streamline their operations, improve efficiency, and drive growth. We hope these testimonials inspire you and provide a clearer understanding of how ALMADS can make a difference in your own business journey.
Central California Almond Growers Association, located in Kerman and Sanger, California, is the largest almond huller / sheller in the world. The organization was founded in 1963. With an explosion of growth of Almonds with in the Central Valley over the following 30 years, the organization expanded from one sheller in Sanger, to four which, three of which began operation in 1983, 1993 and 2006 respectively.
The association was overwhelmed by the volumes of trucks arriving each season and were daunted by the possibility to track grower inventory that could potentially be processed over one of four processing plants. Their stockpile yards were growing larger each year also and were needed some way to control them.
Although the association had engaged a developer to provide a solution, they were not prepared for the sheer size, volume and dynamic nature of the business to provide a suitable solution.
The association also needed a way to track live transactions within each plant so that inventory could be controlled and management had exposure of the live operations as they happened.
ALMADS provided a way to reduce the received truck process by a third, clearing queues through the heat of harvest. All areas of the associations processes were tracked within ALMADS including the management of stockpiles, precleaning, hulling, shelling, hash, hull and shell for all four sites were supported.
Live data capture using mobile and stationary terminals within the plants, barcode tags and scale interfaces made collecting processing information accurate and easy.
Macadamias Direct is a leading Australian supplier and processor of Macadamias servicing both domestic and international markets. Operating across three key locations in regional NSW and Queensland, the business manages the full processing lifecycle – from receiving raw product directly from growers, through, de-husking, drying, cracking, and sorting to packing a diverse range of finished products ready for sale and export.
The Challenge Phase 1 – Inventory Visibility & Sales Integration
The manual tracking of cracked finished goods between Dunoon and Ballina lacked accuracy and real-time visibility, making it difficult to understand available stock. Frequent pallet breakdowns and reconfigurations of styles and types added complexity. Manual entry into MYOB was time-consuming and prone to errors.
The Challenge Phase 2 – Grower Intake & Production Tracking
Grower product tracking from intake through to processing relied on handwritten records and spreadsheets, leading to inefficiencies and delayed reporting. Manual testing processes were slow, despite being critical for grower payments and production planning.
The Challenge Phase 3 – Sales Contracts & Forecasting
Sales contracts were managed manually with no integration to inventory or sales orders. This limited visibility of committed stock and disconnected forecasting, shipping schedules and operational planning.
The Challenge Phase 4 – Mulit-Site Load Tracking
At the Toowoomba facility, load tracking and transfers between sites were manually managed, causing delays in reporting, inventory visibility and timely grower payments.
ALMADS was implemented in phases to deliver a fully integrated, multi-site solution. Real-time data synchronisation across all facilities provided complete visibility of inventory, production and transactions. The system was configured to match Macadamias Direct’s end-to-end processes – from grower intake and testing through to processing, packing and distribution – while enabling full traceability, including pallet breakdowns and reconfigurations.
Sales contracts were digitised and linked directly to sales orders, inventory and MYOB, eliminating manual entry and improving accuracy. A remote access portal also enabled sales and operational staff to securely access live data from any location.
Macadamias Direct transitioned from manual, disconnected processes to a fully integrated, real-time operating environment.
This resulted in improved inventory accuracy and traceability, faster reporting, reduced manual effort, and better alignment across operations, sales and finance – enabling more informed decision-making and scalable growth.
De Pue Warehouse is an independent rice drying, storage, and seed company serving California’s Northern Sacramento Valley since 1952.
De Pue operates fourteen rice facilities and is one of the biggest drying & storage companies in California.
On the surface, De Pue Warehouse’s processes seemed simple enough.
Growers would deliver paddy rice to one of the fourteen facilities, it would get weighed, dried, and stored, then eventually sold and sent to one of many Rice Mills. However, the company was stretched to its limit trying to not only track inventory in all facilities but track rice ownership, splits, warehouse receipts, mill sales and assignments, inventory transfers between facilities and transfers between mills to then determine a Daily Position Report (DPR).
ALMADS was custom developed to evolve from a tree nut system to track paddy rice. The initial goal was to capture receipts at each facility live so that the head office could close out each day at a reasonable time. Using data replication and having an on-premise database in each location, data is captured live at each facility and then synchronized to the office. ALMADS was then evolved to track ownership splits, and then create and assign a Paddy storage Receipt (PSRs) or a Warehouse Receipt (WHRs).
Inventory transfers, mill transfers, overrun tracking were introduced into ALMADS which enhanced the Mill pool component. De Pue Warehouse also allot a proportion of paddy rice for Seed and so ALMADS was evolved to track the soaking, treating of rice to prepare for seed. The seed was then sold and shipped to customers.
This ALMADS Rice solution has now been sold into other Rice Drying and Storage facilities since it provides such an holistic solution for the Rice Drying and Storage business.
Select Harvests is Australia’s largest vertically integrated almond food company with core capabilities across: Horticulture, Orchard Management, Processing, Sales and Marketing. These capabilities enable them to benefit throughout the value chain. They are one of Australia’s largest almond growers and the country’s leading manufacturer, processor and marketer of almond products to the Australian retail and industrial markets, in addition to exporting almonds globally.
Select Harvests were trying to track their inventory through from receiving, processing, grading, packing, warehousing and shipping using an array of spreadsheets and loosely linking information to their accounting system.
The sheer volume increase from a combination of maturing young trees and acreage acquisition in the late 2000s saw a perfect storm brewing.
ALMADS provided an holistic solution which captures live data using a combination of onsite plant terminals and interfaces to PLC automation.
Since Select Harvests is a huller / sheller / sorter / packer / marketer, ALMADS had to cover tracking inventory from field product being received by the Growers, stockpile assignment and usage, drying, pre-cleaning, hulling, shelling, electronic sorting, sizing, grading, fumigation, pasteurization, kernel packing, inshell packing, warehousing, and shipping.
With the configurable processing introduced in ALMADS, blanching and paste were configured and tracked which was introduced later in the project.
In parallel to the tracking of inventory, ALMADS also provided the ability to prepare and assign sales orders, assign matching pre-packed inventory or pack to stock for orders. This would later evolve to have the ERP system (JD Edwards) raise the orders and send to ALMADS. ALMADS would then send the inventory to the ERP system once assigned or packed.
Also in parallel to these solutions, ALMADS was configured to obtain Quality information from sorted product from either the manual assessment or a direct interface to QCIFY. Grading parameters are also set in ALMADS to automatically determine the Grade of product from either sorted and sized WIP product or Finished Goods. Lab results from received product and finished goods are also tracked.
NPA’s pistachio plant is located in the heart of the Australian pistachio growing region at Robinvale, Victoria. The plant was first commissioned in 1992 and has been dramatically expanding ever since.
The pistachio operation is an integrated process including hulling, shelling, drying, cleaning, grading, needle-picking, sorting, sizing, roasting & salting and packing.
Before ALMADS, NPA had implemented an ERP system (SAP) and expected it to be a complete solution for their Pistachio processing business. It became apparent very quickly that although the ERP provided the tools to account for inventory, costs and sales, it did not track inventory processing at a lower level. The grower receiving, weighing and hulling processes were not covered, neither was the tracking of drying silos, silo draw, needle picking, electronic sorting, brining and packing.
ALMADS was chosen because of its track record with Almonds and its ability to capture live inventory processes and movements. ALMADS’ configurable processing module provided a seamless way to capture information live and make it accessible to management in real time.
The data was also captured on-premise and then replicated to the head office in Adelaide so that the staff could assign stock to sales orders and ship from their third-party warehouses.
ALMADS interfaces with their ERP system (SAP) to receive customer orders, pack to these orders or assign previously packed inventory.
ALMADS also provides live data capture for the receiving, weighing and hulling processes. Silos / tanks are also managed and tracked in ALMADS and so too are the silo draw runs in preparation for needle picks.
