SITUATION

A large national retail chain of consumer packaged goods and grocery wanted to better understand occurrence rates of damages and waste in various categories at its distribution centers (DC) and retail stores. The retailer engaged Inmar at the request of several of their manufacturer partners who were experiencing high returns volumes through the retailer.

STRATEGY

• Inmar conducted a multi-phase, all-points supply chain study.
• Implemented a collaborative review of products, packaging and shipment quality.
• Comprehensive data was collected and analyzed for root-causes of damage, through packaging analysis, loading, shipping and other operating procedures.
• Process observation captured numerous waste-reduction opportunities, including photos of subpar performance on outbound and inbound shipments from the retailer DC and at retail stores.

RESULTS

• Waste reduction of $100M over the next five years due to reduction of unsaleables and inefficiencies.
• Process improvement in store training and truck loading/unloading strategy monitored against cost benefit analysis.