From State to Software: One Food Nutrition Expert’s Transition to Working at PrimeroEdge
By Laura Sime
After more than 20 years of working in the School Nutrition industry for states such as Wisconsin and South Carolina, I have the amazing opportunity to translate my experiences with state-level testing and software package validation into the world of software.
What I am learning in my first six months working for PrimeroEdge software is that being part of an industry that is rapidly evolving and continually striving towards improvement is an exciting adventure.
As with every exciting adventure, there are challenges to overcome and riddles to solve. However, nothing is more exciting than meeting these challenges head on and coming up with a solution that leads to further enhancements and improvement using the latest technology. Envisioning how our technology can benefit an industry to which I was dedicated for many years is equally thrilling.
Through the many years working in the Food Distribution arena of Child Nutrition Programs, I personally experienced the challenges that come with navigating through an environment of evolution. For example:
- Tracking and managing of meal count changes
- Updating the per meal rate based on USDA per meal rate changes
- Effectively managing state entitlement dollars and individual school district planned assist level dollars
- Updating USDA Prices based on USDA purchase price
- Monitoring orders for cancellations, delays and shipping date changes
- Managing of state-level inventory Creating and Tracking of Delivery Orders
- Invoicing and Invoice Tracking
But the biggest challenge of all was having one place and platform in which to manage and track all of these. I am sure others working in school nutrition can relate, but I used to joke that I had “spreadsheets to track my spreadsheets!”
The PrimeroEdge Food Distribution module helps to bring all of this together in one platform; automating many processes such as catalog creation, order and receipt generation, truck shipment allocation, reports, RA-to RA transfers, invoices, Planned Assistance Level allocations and more.
As a Business Analyst for PrimeroEdge, I am so excited to have the opportunity to provide solutions that efficiently and effectively manage the processes that I used to focus on so regularly.
Today, I am using my nutrition industry knowledge to help imagine ways to automate the State Agency’s job even more, through technology that brings quality and consistency to the entire food distribution process. I love being part of a team of like minded individuals who are ready to deliver solutions that our customers need most!
