1. Brief update from e-Cert users
2. Welcome to new e-Cert clients FSC, NICS and AgroVet!
3. e-Cert functionalities: Division of work between inspector
and certification officer
4. e-Cert functionalities: Implementing the Organic System
Plan (OSP)
5. e-Cert now represented in North America and Mexico!
6. Presentations and lectures
7. Benefit from a guided tour …
8. Time to get prepared for BioFach
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Dear friends and colleagues,
Certifiers are no easy clients, but are any clients easy? The certification business is not easy, but are other businesses easier? These are two of the many questions I reflected upon this year during negotiations with certifiers. It takes time to present e-Cert and answer myriads of technical and content related questions on the use and the benefits of e-Cert. Of course, questions also centre on the costs of purchasing e-Cert. What it costs is definitely easier to ask than answer as there is no set price. e-Cert is modular in its structure offering certifiers flexible solutions that are tailor made to their needs – and tailor made to the available budget. To date, e-Cert has invested about 1.5 million Euros into software development and requests for expanding its functionalities have still not found its limits. If a certifier attempts to develop its own software using a programme that has not already been tested and further developed by others it will take years to perfect and will require considerable financial resources; e-Cert eliminates this whole stage. Arrange an ‘electronic’ meet-ing with us (see below for details) or meet us at BioFach to learn that the services e-Cert offers are excellent value for money, for small budgets as well as large!
I wish you success,
Gerald A. Herrmann
g.herrmann@ organic-services.com
Mobile: +49 (0)177 552 14 60
Please also look at our website www.organic-services.com and www.e-cert.net
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1. Brief update from e-Cert users
The first full inspection season will terminate within a few weeks. Below are short reports from cur-rent e-Cert users about their experiences:
e-Cert shareholders: Shareholders of e-Cert IT Gmbh (Austria Bio Garantie, Austria; bio.inspecta, Switzerland; Intact Consult, Austria; and Naturland, Germany) have been working with e-Cert since the beginning of the year. Time these certifiers previously wasted on administration is now used for core business activities such as “processing applications from new clients”, “inspections” and “certification”. New functionalities like application forms for seed derogations according to the EU Regulation or more advanced opportunities for creating statistics and reports with so called ‘OLAP cubes’ have been developed and implemented for the further convenience of certifiers. Happier faces everywhere!
e-Cert clients:
International Certification Services (ICS), USA: At the end of October
the e-Cert implementation team travelled to North Dakota (USA) to install
e-Cert at the head office of ICS and to train ICS staff. Due to excellent
preparation from both ICS and e-Cert, implementation was easy and fast.
Dirk Otto, e-Cert project manager of ICS said: “e-Cert is a very
powerful tool for us to speed up our services. We used the implementation
of e-Cert to revise our procedures and to streamline every-thing with
the goal to offer [the] best service possible”.
Coop, Switzerland: e-Cert has recently been customised to suit Coop’s particular needs, and Coop’s project leader has now started the first pilot audits. Coop will use e-Cert for its internal audit management system, including audits of all suppliers and outlets. Supplier and product data are automatically transferred from the internal Electronic Resource Planning (ERP) system (a SAP software).
SwissGap, Switzerland: SwissGap, the Swiss umbrella association of food organisations, is involved in implementing EurepGap in Switzerland and has decided to use e-Cert in a pilot project. Besides the benchmarked EurepGap standard, five additional label programmes will be integrated into this project. Three to four inspection bodies and three certification bodies (involving about a hundred people in total) are engaged in the pilot project.
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2. Welcome to new e-Cert clients FSC, NICS and AgroVet!
Forest Stewardship Council (FSC): After investing considerable time to
describing the needs of the FSC accreditation system in regard to its
database development, FSC decided not to develop its own IT-system but
to use e-Cert as its information and management platform. In spite of
the fact that FSC is not a certification body and therefore not the ‘typical’
e-Cert user, FSC is convinced that e-Cert will answer the needs of its
accreditation system. Frank Gerriets e-Cert project manager stated: “It
is necessary to adapt e-Cert functionalities to the needs of an accreditation
body and to fulfil the requirements of FSC regarding its specific forestry
and chain of custody requirements, however due to the flexible programming
e-Cert provides this will be achieved by the first quarter of 2006”.
Because FSC had already determined in detail what its requirements are,
the creation of the blueprint could be finalised within a few days. Katja
Eisbrenner, e-Cert project manager of FSC said: “It was amazing
how fast we came to the tricky points during the blueprint session and
how fast the e-Cert people understood our system! I am very sure that
e-Cert will be a benefit for FSC and the accredited certification bodies!”
For further information please see www.fsc.org and www.fsc-info.org.
Nature’s International Certification Services (NICS), USA: At the
beginning of December e-Cert was installed at the NICS office, and currently
training sessions are being held for the staff. Nature's International
Certification Services is a new organic certification body founded by
David Engel in June 2005 to serve organic producers and processors/handlers
worldwide. It is located in Viroqua, Wisconsin. NICS employs the USDA's
National Organic Program regulations to assess and certify or-ganic producers'
(including crops, wild harvest crops and livestock operations,) and proces-sor/handlers'
abilities to implement, comply and carry out the terms and conditions
determined for organic management and products.
For further information please see www.naturesinternational.com
agroVet, Austria: Founded in 1998 by the entrepreneur Dr Mattias Grill,
agroVet offers a wide range of certification services in conventional
agriculture mainly within the veterinary and livestock sec-tors, such
as beef labelling standards, HACCP and hygiene inspection. It has offered
‘GMO free’ and EurepGap certification since 2003. e-Cert is
seen as a management tool that will increase efficiency especially when
more than one service is applied.
For further information please see www.agrovet.at
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3. e-Cert functionalities: Division of
work between inspector and certification officer
e-Cert offers the functionality of defining workflows that(if
implemented) will lead every individual with a defined ‘role’
through the system. Inspectors receive their ‘clients’, farms
and other operators they have to audit, via the communication platform
‘info portal’ of e-Cert. The inspector can choose to accept
the inspection mandate or to reject it due to reasons of time, sickness
or other factors.
During the onsite audit the inspector fills out the inspector’s
checklist directly into e-Cert or onto paper. Every control point allows
the inspector to give his/her personal comments and to state whether the
client fulfils the standard requirement or not. After having completed
the checklist it is sent electronically if using the offline module for
laptops and synchronised on the server. The certification officer immediately
receives a message in the info portal of e-Cert that the checklist is
available for further processing. Results of the audit and proposals made
by the inspector can now be revised. If necessary, it is possible for
the certification officer to overrule the certification, sanction and
deadline recommendations made by the inspector. All follow-up work is
supported by a reminder function.
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4. e-Cert functionalities: Implementing the Organic System Plan
(OSP)
Under the USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP) it is mandatory for every operation to complete an Organic System Plan (OSP). The OSP is meant to provide the certification body with an overview of an operation prior to certification. Due to the flexibility of the OSP it can be incorporated into e-Cert in a number of different ways. For example, ICS currently have their clients’ OSPs loaded into e-Cert as editable word document files. It is possible to allow each operator secure access to their files, as well as other areas of e-Cert that rights are given for, through the web portal in order to update their OSP. ICS is considering having their OSP incorporated into drop down menus with the relevant OSP sections connected to the corresponding system groups. Connecting the sections to the correct groups would allow only the relevant sections to be displayed for a particular operator. Another possibility is to incorporate the OSP into the guideline designer. This would require reduc-ing the OSP to a yes/no format, which may be problematic from an information gathering standpoint as the OSP requires more narrative information. As e-Cert develops many other possible ways of displaying the information required by the OSP are sure to become apparent.
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5. e-Cert now represented in North America and Mexico!
At a time ICS was still deciding about whether to buy e-Cert for its
own use, ICS had the idea that it could also play a role in the international
marketing team of e-Cert IT GmbH. Robert Simmons, sen-ior executive partner
of ICS, realized the huge potential for e-Cert in the US but also for
the other software programmes of Intact on traceability and quality management.
Subsequently, the owners and directors of e-Cert IT GmbH, Intact and Organic
Services GmbH de-cided that clients based in the US, Canada and Mexico
would be best served by ICS offering all sales and implementation services
directly. It is planned that an independent company set up specifically
to offer e-Cert services will be established. However, its structure has
not been decided upon yet, and until further decisions are made ICS will
offer e-Cert and other software services under the um-brella of ICS. Therefore,
US based certification bodies, processors or trading companies may now
contact ICS directly to learn more about e-Cert and the Intact product
family. ICS’s own experience of implementing the Organic System
Plan into e-Cert will help to give targeted support to other certifiers
during their decision making and implementation processes.
Gerald A. Herrmann, Director of Organic Services GmbH said: “We
warmly welcome Robert Simmons and Dirk Otto onto our sales and IT –team,
and we are looking forward to a successful cooperation!”
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6. Presentations and lectures
e-Cert at the “IFOAM Organic World Congress”, Adelaide
e-Cert was present at the IFOAM Organic World Congress in September this
year. Gerald A. Herrmann presented the topic: “Traceability of organic
products – standards and regulations, challenges, examples”
to a small but interested audience.
e-Cert presentations around the world
e-Cert was presented at several meetings in countries such as Argentina,
Austria, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, India and Italy. Presentations
were also given to delegations from Tanzania and Rwanda. The audience
were mainly organic certification bodies but there were some processors
interested in using e-Cert for their internal control system.
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7. Benefit from a guided tour …
Do you want to learn more about the functionalities of e-Cert? Fix a date for a “guided tour” right now! This is a free service offered by Organic Services! e-Cert provides a demo-system that is accessible via internet, displaying all the functionalities of e-Cert and showing how to make use of them in your company. No matter where you are located and what the time difference is between your location and European time – we can fix a date and can lead you step by step and topic by topic through the software. Following on from the data-conference, a phone-conference completes the technical set-up to discuss all questions on the spot. If you are interested please contact us to arrange a private meeting. For your convenience use the form below.
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8. Time to get prepared for BioFach
e-Cert IT GmbH and Intact will be providing access to life systems at BioFach 2006. If you wish to arrange a private meeting please make a reservation indicating your preferred day and time by using the form below.
I want to learn more about the functionalities and the possibilities
of cost saving with e-Cert ?
I want to learn more about traceability through e-Cert and its inter-faces
to external traceability systems ?
I am interested in a guided tour through the internet ?
My preferred date is (in case you are not attending BioFach):
My preferred time is:
My preferred date at BioFach is:
Thursday, February 16th 2006
?
Friday, February 17th 2006
Saturday, February 18th
Sunday, February 19th 2006
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“e-Cert News” is published by Organic Services. Gerald A. Herrmann, Director of Organic Services is responsible for international business development of e-Cert. We welcome comments.
If you wish to be added to our mailing list, please send
an email to news@organic-services.com with "add to mailing list"
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If you wish to be removed from our mailing list, please send an email
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in the subject line and your e-mail address.
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“e-Cert News” is published by Organic Services. Gerald A. Herrmann, Director of Organic Ser-vices is responsible for international business development of e-Cert. We welcome comments.
If you wish to be added to our mailing list, please send an email to news@ organic-services.com with "add to mailing list" in the subject line and the relevant e-mail address.
If you wish to be removed from our mailing list, please send an email to news@ organic-services.com with "remove from mailing list" in the subject line and your e-mail address.