How to Automate Mar-Kov

A batch is a legal record before it is a product

Mar-Kov, from Mar-Kov Computer Systems, is batch manufacturing software: an MRP and an MES together, for industries where a product is mixed rather than assembled. Food and beverage, ice cream and frozen dessert, commercial bakery, chemical, paints and coatings, cosmetic, dietary supplement and pharmaceutical.

What those industries share is that the recipe is regulated and the evidence is the point. An ice cream plant is not only making pints. It is making a claim: that this pint contains what the label says, that the allergen statement is right, that the cream in it came from a named lot on a named day, and that if any of it turns out wrong the plant can list every pallet made from the same drum within an afternoon.

So Mar-Kov holds the formula, the batch as it runs, the lot numbers on every input and output, and the tests taken and signed for along the way.

Half the finished goods sit in a warehouse the plant does not run

That record stops at the loading dock, and for a frozen dessert maker most of the business is past it.

Finished pints go to a third-party cold store, and the pallet count, the location and the age of what is out there live in that warehouse's own system. A co-packer runs a seasonal flavour on somebody else's line, and its confirmations, yields and hold notices arrive by email or not at all. A reefer carrier holds the temperature record proving the load never broke, and it sits on a carrier portal. An ingredient supplier revises a spec sheet or an allergen statement, and nobody hears until an audit asks.

Then the retailer portals, where a deduction against last month's shipment is posted and starts aging whether anyone opens it or not.

Mar-Kov

Pallets in a rented freezer, counted Positions and lot ages read off the third-party cold store's own portal each morning, so stock aging towards its date is a production decision rather than a write-off.

Co-packer runs that report back Confirmations, yields and hold notices collected from the co-manufacturer's own site and matched to the formula and the lot they belong to.

Spec changes caught before an audit Supplier specification sheets, allergen statements and certificates of analysis checked for revisions and expiry dates, so quality hears about a change first.

Electronic Batch Records close every step that happens indoors

Inside the plant Mar-Kov is thorough, and a manufacturer should have all of it switched on before looking elsewhere.

Electronic batch records are created as batches are executed, so every step, signoff and test is captured while it happens rather than written up later, and a historic record can be searched years afterwards. Formulation control and MRP work out what to buy and what to make. Inventory and warehouse management runs on full barcode control, advanced location, lot and LPN tracking, FIFO and FEFO enforcement with expiry management, intelligent staging, cycle counts reconciled by scan, and rule-based storage zone enforcement that keeps incompatible materials apart. Quality control gates the work: a step stays locked until the required tests pass, and a deviation raises an alert. Mar-Kov can also read scales and PLCs directly.

Every one of those describes material inside your own four walls, under your own barcode.

The pallet in a rented freezer three states away, the batch a co-packer ran last Thursday and the spec sheet a supplier revised on Monday are all real, and none of them is in the batch record.

A lot stays traceable after it leaves the building

A pallet stops being visible the moment it leaves the dock, and it does not have to. The cold store, the co-packer and the carrier all keep a record of your goods, and each of them will show it to anyone holding your login.

Pallet positions and lot ages read off the third-party cold store's portal each morning and set against your own inventory, so stock aging towards its best-before date becomes a production decision rather than a write-off. Co-packer run confirmations, yields and hold notices collected from the co-manufacturer's site and matched to the formula and lot they belong to.

Reefer temperature records pulled from the carrier's tracking page and filed against the shipment before anyone asks for them. Supplier specification sheets, allergen statements and certificates of analysis checked for revisions and for expiry, so a changed statement reaches quality before it reaches an auditor. Retailer portals watched for deductions and chargebacks against shipments already made, since those age quietly and get harder to argue the longer they sit.

A batch record deserves a human signature

Gathering the evidence and signing for it are two different acts. The gathering is somebody opening eight portals in the same order every morning, which is the job nobody in a plant has time to keep doing.

WebRun is an AI agent that works a real Chrome browser, signed in as you. It opens the cold store's portal, the co-packer's site, the carrier's tracking page or a supplier's document library, reads what is posted and brings it back against the lot, the batch or the shipment it belongs to.

In a regulated plant that is the whole division of labour. Gathering runs unattended. Anything that changes a batch record, releases a lot or goes out to a customer is drafted and waits for the person qualified to sign it.

The workflows below are already built, and each one names what it opens.