SEATTLE -- The benefits of consolidation are becoming increasingly evident, according to Joe Andraski, vice president of customer marketing operations at Nabisco, Parsippany, N.J.
One multivendor consolidation program, for example, more than tripled the number of orders per shipment coming into a distribution center over a two-month period, Andraski said during the keynote address at the Distribution Conference here last week. The show was sponsored by the Food Marketing Institute, Washington.
With multivendor consolidation, multiple less-than-truckload orders are consolidated to make a truckload. This truckload is then routed to the distributor's warehouse.
Andraski called multivendor consolidation a "no-brainer" in order to achieve savings. "Our industry has fallen asleep at the switch. We're not taking advantage of something that is worth somewhere between 30 and 65 cents a case in savings."
Andraski pointed to results from an ongoing consolidation program with a distributor. Nabisco was one of six manufacturers involved in the pilot.
The pilot showed the number of orders per shipment increased from 1.2 to 3.7 over a two-month period. The average weight of the load increased from 11,900 pounds to 33,315 pounds. "You're seeing fewer trucks show up and there are fewer appointments to scan," Andraski said.
He added unload time decreased from 5.5 hours down to 1.5 hours in the pilot, while turns at retail jumped 40% to 60%.
