The Problems

The pain point we examined were in the increased time and miles it took to pick up boutique and specialty items from a large number of growers in a large geographic region in the Pacific NW.

What we Found

Long truck wait times, distance between pick-ups inherent to NW tree fruit varieties and shed locations, adverse winter weather were all conditions that drove up transit times and increased volatility on inbound transit times. The result of this was chaotic inventory management practices and reduced emphasis on variety of product offering, vendor concentration on spend, and inability to introduce new, highly seasonal variety available at many different pick up points around the PNW growing regions.

Solution

This retailer prides itself on variety, quality, and specialty items, boutique offerings, and we were able to maintain these core attributes through consolidation. Using a specialized plan to coordinate and consolidate a customer’s supply chain resulted in $3.5 million in savings. This also brought in greater efficiencies in time on road, freshness, and administration.