Lean warehousing quality improvement programs have driven billions of dollars’ worth of value across corporate supply chains. They are the road map to faster, better and cheaper. But, if you’re not careful, these programs can become weighed down with bureaucracy, adding time and cost to your quality improvement efforts.

Listen. React.

Listen. React. 

Listen. React.

These two words summarize the day of many customer service representatives (CSRs) across the world. 

In logistics, we measure just about everything. If it moves, we measure how fast. If it sits, we measure how long. If it costs money, we measure how much.

But do we ever measure happy? 

Not often, if at all. And that’s too bad. Happy is an under-rated metric.

Consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies face a constant battle for market share and retail shelf space. Price points are a key weapon in this battle and, increasingly, companies rely on lean CPG logistics operations to provide a cost advantage.

How is your company responding to this challenge? With incremental improvements to existing distribution processes? Or, are you exploring logistics strategies that alter current processes and the way you work with retail
customers?

A mix of both is optimal, with new strategies offering the best potential for breakthrough gains and cost savings, particularly for mid-tier suppliers struggling to compete with much larger brands. Following are 7 strategies for CPG manufacturers to consider. Some new, some tried and true.

The bar has been raised on logistics performance.  Retail customers want perfect orders (expect a fine if they’re not perfect), and they want them faster and delivered within tighter and tighter time windows.

As a logistics manager, the spotlight is shining brighter on you and, by extension, your logistics service providers (3PLs).  You want and need your 3PLs to be great. But, ironically, achieving that result may have as much to do with how hard and how smart you work, as your 3PL. 

Affiliates of Harkness Capital Partners have agreed to make an investment in Kane Is Able, Inc. to support KANE’s growth strategy of expanding its services and national presence.

In our “Dispatches from the Road” feature, the KANE blog will periodically publish interviews with our drivers – the men and women who live and breathe the transportation topics we often write about.  In our newest installment, we interview KANE driver John Shepherd, III.

Specific consumer products look exactly the same when they roll off the manufacturing line.  To satisfy retailer requirements, however, these identical products are wrapped, sealed, tied and packed in dozens, even hundreds, of different ways for presentation on the retail shelf.  Consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies often outsource custom product packaging to outside contract packagers, adding a costly and time-consuming step between manufacturing and the distribution center.