3PL Provides Recipe for Distribution and Fulfillment Network Efficiencies

A national manufacturer of baking goods and desserts was looking to unify multiple brands under a single supply chain network. The company was struggling with vendor compliance and chargebacks with major food and grocery retailers. In addition, inefficient processes, staging configurations, overflow facilities, and case pick challenges were causing issues in their warehouse operations and leading to bloated inventory levels.

The company was looking to partner with a 3PL that could design new processes to address their retail compliance challenges, engineer a new solution to address inefficiencies in their distribution and fulfillment network, and was experienced with food and beverage logistics to recommend supply chain solutions specific to their industry. Here is how ODW Logistics delivered.

THE SOLUTION

To address vendor compliance challenges, ODW Logistics completed a comprehensive retail compliance audit with the company to set a baseline for current processes. This audit established a benchmark for issues driving retail chargebacks that included routing guidelines, order submission errors, and mismanaged key performance indicators (KPIs).

Next, standard operating procedures were designed that outlined specific requirements and processes for every retailer in the network and provided a template to efficiently manage retail compliance measures.

Finally, procedure and communication guidelines were implemented for the carrier network. This streamlined communication, improved overall visibility, and standardized pickup and scheduling protocols. As a result of these measures, the company realized a decrease in retail chargebacks of 87% in the first 12 months.

To optimize the distribution and fulfillment network, ODW Logistics redesigned racking layout, reorganized storage configuration, and rebalanced inventories to accommodate for order volumes. Case pick processes were also streamlined and reengineered to improve replenishment speed of fast moving SKUs.

As a result of improving inventory balance and case pick processes, the baked goods company improved storage capacity by 60% and eliminated 300,000 square feet of inefficient overflow space in their network.

Source: https://magazine.inboundlogistics.com/view/322428317/36/#zoom=true