The Woolworths food division in South Africa has deployed MetricStream's audit management and document management technology to improve its operations.

MetricStream's offering is designed to increase the efficiency of audit management, meet regulatory demands, enhance reporting efficiency, and significantly reduce compliance costs.

A household name throughout South Africa, Woolworths sells a wide range of products including food, clothing, beauty products and homeware across over 400 stores there, as well as through franchise partners in other parts of Africa and the Middle East.

Woolworths' food division wanted to comply with various standards and other regulations across a complex supply and distribution chain spanning 6,000 global suppliers, and required meticulous auditing and documentation. The process of manually compiling audits across business processes, products and suppliers was both complex and time-consuming.

With MetricStream, Woolworths can independently manage all quality, safety and compliance related documentation, records and audits from a central framework. The process is completely automated and workflow-driven, providing managers with easy access to data, and enabling them to perform analytics from multiple dimensions such as supplier, product, date and event.

The audit management module from MetricStream enables Woolworths to audit suppliers, stores and warehouses; and the document management module supports internal policies, supplier documents and certification processes.

Zyda Rylands, managing director for foods at Woolworths, said, "With MetricStream we can effectively align business strategy with quality and compliance programmes."