Trace Id is missing
May 02, 2023

Bartek transforms business operations from paper to digital through Dynamics 365

Bartek is the world’s largest producer of malic and fumaric acid—two key ingredients for many foods, beverages, and industrial applications. With demand increasing, the company sought to expand to reliably meet the needs of the well-known brands and customers who depend on its product. Bartek needed a technology solution that would transform business operations, maximize sales productivity, and automate business processes. The company worked with Microsoft to implement Dynamics 365 Business Central and Power Apps to unify back- and front-end operations.

Bartek Ingredients

“With Microsoft, we as a middle-market company can compete on a global scale.”

Steven Chambers, Chief Financial Officer, Bartek Ingredients

With increased demand comes a need to transform operations

There’s something special, nostalgic even, about the taste of a sour candy. It makes the mouth water, the lips pucker, and the eyes and face scrunch up. That tangy, tart flavor has been integral to winning recipes for candies, drinks, and more for generations. It turns out, that distinctive sourness comes from malic acid—a natural substance derived from many fruits. Since 1969, Bartek Ingredients has been a primary supplier of that renowned flavor to the makers of many of the world’s favorite candies.

Based in North America and distributing to customers in more than 40 countries around the globe, Bartek is the world’s largest producer of malic acid and food-grade fumaric acid—another flavor-enhancing ingredient used in foods and beverages, with medicinal and industrial applications as well. The company is constantly looking for ways to develop new formulations for a changing marketplace, seeking to improve flavor profiles, reduce ingredient costs, and increase profitability. The company often works with customers to innovate on how its specialty ingredients can deliver new and exciting solutions in the market. 

With demand increasing, Bartek was facing a good problem, but a problem nonetheless. “We had a paper-based production order system that generated no cost information, no timestamps,” says Steven Chambers, Chief Financial Officer at Bartek. “I realized very quickly Bartek would never be able to do any cost optimization, understand its productivity, manage its business, and get insights from its data without getting a system that had the capability to capture production order transactions and the use of raw materials and time to package.”

Bartek needed a way to transform its business operations so it could continue to grow and still make good on its promise of superior quality and customer satisfaction—and of maintaining registered standards for the quality management systems at its manufacturing facilities. Bartek needed to evolve from a paper-based system to a digital system with minimal disruption to its workflow. 

The company started looking around for an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system to connect cost, sales, purchasing, and payroll, all into one integrated system. Understanding all these parameters together would help them determine proper costing for their products. As a medium-sized business, Bartek needed to find a solution that could work within its parameters. “We have the resources of a middle market company, but we’re a global leader. We sell to wholesalers all over the world. What we are doing now is trying to set the predicate for the next 50 years of continued market leadership and success,” says Chambers. “That’s when we made a decision to implement Business Central.”

Goodbye paper. Hello digital.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central was a great solution for Bartek because the solution is designed to help connect operations across small-or-medium-sized businesses that need to increase productivity and manage costs. “We serve a large clientele, but we’re a smaller business,” says Eric Turner, Sr. Process Analyst at Bartek. “Dynamics 365 seemed like it could scale nicely for a company our size.” 

“Bringing these advanced analytics and industry 4.0 tools with Business Central—we now have perpetual inventory sales all in one system that gives us a more informed view of our ability to service our customers,” says Chambers. “Because we know what we have, we can more effectively manage the supply demand equation. Having perpetual inventory on the 25 packaging raw material SKUs has resulted in a step change in supply chain performance.” The quality tracking reports provide users with near real-time trends, says Chambers, so they're able to understand if they have a process variable that's going out of control. “This means we can actually make corrections before we start putting off spec product into final packaging. Our failure rates have gone down ensuring less waste and less cost, and our raw material stock-outs are down over 85 percent due to the back flushing functionality of the manufacturing module in Business Central,” says Chambers.

With Dynamics 365 Business Central, Bartek was able to implement a connected business management solution that helped it adapt faster, work smarter, and perform better without any disruption to the company’s workflow while transitioning from paper to digital. The company was able to optimize financial and operating models while maintaining business continuity through an entirely connected business management solution. 

“Dynamics 365 is a part of our whole communication,” says Wendy Southern, Production Scheduler at Bartek. “The information is just phenomenal. Everybody can see everything. It’s easy to use. I don’t lose any historical data. Having this communication available to everybody as a team effort is the most important thing in order to keep a business running. Plus, production scheduler working hours required per production order has reduced by approximately 50 percent.”

Also, by integrating Dynamics 365 Business Central with Power Apps, Bartek was able to transform more than just its business management. The company’s operational management has been transformed as well. “I set up a lot of our manufacturing process in Business Central,” says Turner. “Power Apps is really nice and low code. A lot of small to mid-size businesses don’t have the bandwidth to manage a whole development team, whereas with Power Apps and Business Central, you can have people that basically just know Excel come in, make apps, and understand the process flow.” Because of implementing Power Apps to manage the production order completion process, Turner says the overall order cycle time has decreased by approximately 8 percent.

“Workers on the floor interface with Power Apps via e-tablets,” says Southern. “From raw materials in, to the shipping of palettes out the door, Bartek uses Power Apps for quality, production, and warehouse and Power BI for the reporting. We’ve created three different apps for each department so that they can all communicate and roll it through to the end so we can ship it out. Using Power BI for all of the reports, we have access to the data we need—traceability, inventory, failures with equipment, etc. We use Power BI for all our communication for reporting.”

Leading globally as a mid-size company

With Dynamics 365 Business Central, Power Apps, and Power BI implemented and fully operational, Bartek has full visibility across its business operations with access to real-time data visualization that will give them actionable insights and business intelligence for years to come. “Now we actually know what proper costing, we’re setting out to the market for our customers,” says Southern. “There’s a true trace and nobody has to question what another person is doing because all the information is there. And when you have to pull information from Dynamics 365, I find it very quick and easy.”

“We’ve just really hit a milestone where we have a platform with transaction data that we can rely on and analyze,” says Chambers. “We’re really at the front end of what we are going to be able to do with the platform. With Microsoft, we as a middle market company can compete on a global scale.”

Find out more about Bartek on LinkedIn.

“With Dynamics 365, it is a part of our whole communication. The information is just phenomenal. Everybody can see everything.”

Wendy Southern, Production Scheduler, Bartek Ingredients

Take the next step

Fuel innovation with Microsoft

Talk to an expert about custom solutions

Let us help you create customized solutions and achieve your unique business goals.

Drive results with proven solutions

Achieve more with the products and solutions that helped our customers reach their goals.

Follow Microsoft