(The original version of this story erroneously cited subscription charges of $200 to $1,500 per month. That is in fact an annual cost, as is reflected in the current version of the story below.)
Hewlett-Packard and the Canadian arm of a global standards organization today rolled out a cloud-based service said to help food and beverage, toy, and pharmaceuticals manufacturers and their supply chain partners more efficiently conduct product recalls.
The service, a collaboration between HP and the GS1 non-profit supply chain standards organization, is being deployed initially for food and beverage manufacturers in Canada. It will later be deployed in other countries, said Mick Keys, HP’s senior architect for business critical systems, in an interview with Managing Automation.
The offering comes at a time when regulators and manufacturers are becoming more concerned about improving the efficiency and reducing the costs associated with product recalls. Over the past few months, manufacturers have been forced to recall food products ranging from ground beef to alfalfa sprouts. Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation that would amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act to require more frequent inspections of food plants and the implementation by manufacturers of detailed food safety plans.