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"Obtaining immediate access and feedback to audited data and reports keeps us on top of all quality and safety related issues."

--Dennis Schminke
Senior Business Analyst for Hormel Foods Corporation

Hormel Foods is an international marketer of high-quality, value-added food products and is home to some of the most trusted brand names in the food industry. Hormel takes product quality and food safety seriously and is always looking for better methods to ensure the quality and safety of its food products. Hormel's commitment to excellence led them to Steton Technology Group — the leader in mobile auditing and automated quality control technology.

The Benefits: $150,000-200,000 in Savings a Year

Steton's mobile auditing technology dramatically improves the speed of data collection and the usability of data gathered during the auditing process. In addition to these benefits, Hormel has discovered another advantage — significant cost savings! According to Schminke, “The Steton Quality Suite is much less costly than manual paper audits. We estimate that automating the reporting process will save us 1/2 to one full-time person at each of the 13 facilities we audit. We expect $150,000-$200,000 annual savings."

Additional Benefits: Flexibility

Hormel spent months researching different companies with automated data collection and reporting systems.

Resha Hovde, a Quality and Process Specification Coordinator for Hormel, states, “Many companies we looked at had canned audit forms that required us to pay someone else to create or change them. We knew we would have thousands of forms and this would be very costly if we couldn't change them on our own."

From an economical standpoint, the Senior Business Analyst, Schminke, touted the value of forms flexibility, “The ability to create and maintain our own forms was a major advantage that we saw in the Steton solution. Having the ability to maintain [the forms] in-house was important to us. Many vendors were quoting costs of several hundred dollars per form to create or change."

A Smooth Implementation

"The installation and training process went smoothly," according to Schminke. “We sent five people to training at one time. We haven't needed any more training since. We've found that our auditors can pick up the software and use it quite easily."

Instant Reports

Like many companies, Hormel utilized the "paper and pencil" method of quality control data collection. According to Schminke, this posed problems. “With paper-based audits, management did not have access to summarized audit data for as much as a week after the audit was performed. With Steton Quality Suite, when the auditing is done, the reports are ready."

Essential for Manufacturers

Schminke emphasized, “With the increasing regulations in the food industry, any food-related manufacturer would benefit greatly from the solution offered by Steton Technology Group."

More on Steton: Empowering Organizations

Established in 1996, Steton is the leading provider of mobile data collection and reporting software for quality and safety professionals responsible for public health and consumer safety. Steton empowers organizations to avoid loss and increase compliance through improved data accuracy, corrective action management, and real-time reporting.

A snapshot of Steton's clients include the top three quick-service restaurants in the world, the world's number one retailer, leading food processors, the global leader in contract food service, the world's largest hotel chain, leading third-party auditors and labs, government agencies, airlines, correctional facilities, and the list goes on. These prominent organizations have turned to Steton to help protect their most valuable assets — people, products, and brands. Steton's rapidly expanding list of clients across multiple industries has made Steton's software the technology standard for quality and safety professionals.