Client: Walmart

Background

Fresh cherries are an expensive and extremely perishable fruit. The CA cherry season is very brief and has historically been characterized by inconsistent supplies and excessive wait times for trucks at shipping point. This presented Wal-Mart, the largest US food retailer, with a set of challenges including inefficient product acquisition, short – shipments, delayed transportation, and out-of-stocks at both the DC and store levels which in turn resulted in lost sales opportunities and customer dissatisfaction. WM’s Produce group asked FLG to help them develop a more efficient supply chain which would result in lower shrink, and higher sales.

Approach

• In coordination with Wal-Mart Produce and Transportation and WM’s CA cherry vendors, FLG developed a program which coordinated the harvest, cooling and packing processes among six different grower packer shippers and optimized them with respect to WM’s distribution and merchandising requirements
• FLG developed a Purchase Order fulfillment process for consolidating, staging and loading at a single facility rather than multiple loading points

Results

• The new staging system developed by FLG reduced wait times for line trucks to load; allowed more efficient use of transportation equipment and traffic lanes; and improved timely deliveries to DC’s and stores
• Average wait time for line trucks after staging at the consolidation facility was 30-55 minutes, compared to wait times of 2 to 36 hours in acquiring fruit at the various shipping points
• The time cherries were in transit from harvest to WM distribution center was reduced by an average of 18 hours or by as much as 30% resulting in significantly reduced shrink and higher customer satisfaction