Darigold consolidates, streamlines, and standardizes with Oracle Cloud

Darigold has delivered farm-fresh milk and high-quality dairy products to consumers for 105 years. Owned by more than 350 farming members of the Northwest Dairy Association, the organization is the fifth-largest dairy cooperative in the United States.

With over a century of success under its belt, Darigold understands what it takes to remain a major player in the industry. Executives identified several areas for improvement when evaluating the company’s finance and supply chain landscape. For instance, Darigold was managing operations with roughly 20 legacy on-premises systems. These disparate applications resulted in processes that varied by location and hindered reporting and insights due to complicated data integrations.

Transportation and logistics represent the bulk of Darigold’s operating costs, but the company was forced to manage shipments through third-party carriers and outsource management of its transportation fleet. Additionally, the lack of a single, unified lens made on-time execution difficult, especially given the dairy products’ limited shelf life. Executives sought to insource transportation operations for greater efficiency and cost savings, but the existing systems couldn’t support the transition.

A change was needed for Darigold to improve its finance and supply chain operations, and executives recognized that cloud technology offered the most sustainable path for growth. Due to the company’s long-standing success with Oracle E-Business Suite, Darigold selected the unified suite of Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), and Oracle Fusion Cloud Supply Chain & Manufacturing (SCM).

The comprehensive application suite would help eliminate complex integrations and consolidate data for a holistic view of the business. It also would reduce Darigold’s reliance on third-party systems, support the standardization of business processes across different teams and locations, and give employees the tools to help automate manual activities.

Crucially, the combined power of Oracle Transportation Management, Oracle Warehouse Management, and Oracle Global Trade Management would allow the company to bring its transportation and fleet management operations in-house for greater control, efficiency, and ease of execution.

Darigold began by addressing its finance and transportation operations. The company used Oracle Cloud ERP tools such as Oracle Financials to create a single source of accurate financial data and automate manual work to help close the books faster. To assist with the expedited close process, it used Oracle Cloud EPM to simplify account reconciliations, which allowed the company controller to manage workloads easily in one system versus chasing down people and spreadsheets during a busy close period.

At the same time, Darigold moved away from third-party carriers and internalized fleet management operations thanks to Oracle Transportation Management. This change gave the company more control over its transportation network, resulting in significant savings that could be used to support further expansion. 

To further optimize its end-to-end supply chain processes, Darigold then deployed Oracle Order Management and Oracle Warehouse Management. The organization moved off its four existing order management tools and established a single, consistent way to submit orders, which accommodated Darigold’s unique product allocations. As a result, the newly streamlined order-to-cash process led to additional cost savings. Oracle Warehouse Management provided a clearer view of warehouse inventory—essential for products with a limited shelf life—and made it easier for staff to locate, scan, and pick orders for streamlined fulfillment. Moreover, Oracle Global Trade Management collected order and transportation data to improve speed and accuracy when completing export paperwork before products were shipped to global consumers.

Three years into its five-year transformation, Darigold automated nearly 80% of its core business processes, drastically improved reporting capabilities, and brought greater efficiency to its operations. Automatic quarterly updates available in Oracle Cloud Applications proved beneficial by introducing a valuable new mobile feature for the company’s transportation fleet.

Darigold selected Automus as its partner for the implementation. Automus brought a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the table, helping the company transition from its legacy, on-premises systems to a unified cloud platform. The partner continues to assist with the phased deployment, rolling out additional modules and helping to redesign business processes over the next two years.