Digitization of the production kitchen for 31 locations

As the largest denominational healthcare and social enterprise in Berlin and northern Germany, 9,300 employees of Johannesstift Diakonie gAG provide medical care for patients in hospitals, care for residents of all ages, and care for children and parents in difficult family situations on a daily basis. High cost pressure, constantly changing framework conditions and increasing competition also pose new challenges for Johannesstift Diakonie in providing optimum care for patients and residents. As a wholly owned subsidiary, Johannesstift Diakonie Services GmbH in Berlin supports the healthcare facilities in coping with the daily challenges. It is not only the company’s own facilities that rely on its services in the areas of catering, strategic and operational purchasing, and logistics. External customers such as schools, daycare centers and other healthcare facilities also use the wide range of services offered by Services GmbH. Of the approximately 800 employees of the service company, around 120 produce 11,500 meals a day in the modern central kitchen in Berlin Spandau, thus ensuring the supply of food at 31 locations. The furthest tour even stretches up to 150 kilometers.

The challenge

The creation of individual menu plans for all locations, including communication to customers, was a major challenge. The daily orders were entered manually, which resulted in a very high time expenditure. Even more challenging was the preparation of the production lists. Orders came in through various channels and then had to be laboriously consolidated. The affiliated hospitals had the additional requirements of taking into account food types, allergens and dislikes in the patient orders. The accounting of the catering days and the correct allocation of the goods inputs was only possible with a great deal of effort.

The solution

With the introduction of Delegate Patients Service and the integrated central production module, all necessary processes could be implemented and optimized. From purchasing, article and recipe management, menu planning and central production to menu ordering via mobile devices including billing, all processes could be mapped completely digitally with the new system. All orders are now transferred via various channels in the system and automatically merged in production. The flexible display of the labels supports the portioning or picking of the meals. Thanks to the connection to the hospital information system, patient data including allergens is transferred directly to the system and taken into account in the integrated menu ordering solution. The days on which meals are served can thus be billed precisely to the customer and the goods used can be allocated correctly. Many manual processes are now represented digitally. This has eliminated sources of error and freed up staff for other activities.