Background
Companies in the fast moving consumer goods sector constantly seek to be more efficient and reduce operating costs through their supply chains. As part of their semi-annual strategic review process, leadership teams from General Mills and CHEP collaborated to identify non-value added costs and unnecessary process steps that commonly plague productivity throughout the supply chain.
The Solution
CHEP’s supply chain solutions team worked closely with General Mills to evaluate the company’s operational network through an in-depth assessment of the company’s end-to-end value chain. Through this process, CHEP shared best-in-class techniques and processes through its broad knowledge of the flow of data, goods and shipping platforms within complex supply chains. This process measured the effectiveness of both inbound and outbound operations, identified opportunities for greater efficiency and proposed solutions to help reduce operating costs.
The Results
The project identified more than 40 opportunities for greater efficiencies along the General Mills supply chain and included these specific areas of focus:
To maximize the impact of these opportunities, CHEP and General Mills developed a three-year roadmap for the development and implementation of multiple supply chain solutions. Specific examples included labor savings resulting from the optimization of the number of supply chain platforms used, and an annualized reduction of more than 130,000 under-utilized transportation miles identified through an assessment of the General Mills and CHEP transportation networks. By addressing the top ten opportunities identified by the CHEP supply chain solutions team, General Mills has saved more than $3 million to date.