Lean manufacturing and supply chain concepts have been in the mainstream for over thirty years. The key values for Lean Supply Chain for Food and Beverage include:

• Create value for the customer by reducing the amount of waste within companies and along the food supply chain.
• Create a smooth flow of goods along the food supply chain by eliminating problems and other delays that interrupt flow.
• Improve response times by eliminating waste in product and service deliveries
• Identify quality problems and maintain traceability programs
• Develop cross-trained employees necessary to maintain the consistent product flows and high quality

The typical Food Supply chain consists of a loose connection of manufacturing sites, warehouses, and distribution centers that are managed as separate entities. This lack of interconnectedness creates an environment for waste and buffering behaviors.

Lean for the Supply Chain focuses on the elimination of waste and buffering behaviors by looking at the expanded scope and several areas of waste including:

• System Complexity
• Lead Time
• Transport
• Space
• Inventory
• Human effort
• Packaging
• Energy

To tackle these areas of waste Adroit begins with High-Level Value Stream Mapping in which we look at the entire supply chain to confirm whether an integrated system across the food supply chain makes sense.  We try to get a sense of the durations and waste activities as the goods flow from farm to table. 

With that broad sense we then focus in on the following areas with our clients:

• Product – New SKU introductions per year continue to rise within the Food and Beverage industry. The SKU proliferation increases complexity and variation in the product lines. We ensure our clients understand that complexity so they can weigh tradeoffs and ensure alignment to the Supply Chain Strategy.
• Purchasing Process – We work to understand how suppliers are chosen and to help to reduce the number of suppliers in strategic areas while balancing risk. The strategic suppliers are then candidates for a longer term initiative to move from adhoc to interfaced to integrated to interlaced.
• Production Process – Variations can take the form of uneven workflow, change overs, sanitation / CIP, schedule thrash, and downtime for a host of reasons.
• Delivery Process – The move from processed food to fresh, additional sku’s, multiple channels, etc demand more frequent but smaller orders. This introduces scheduling challenges, dock congestion, increased numbers of picks, and non collaborative service level mandates. We focus our approach on designing an integrated delivery process that considers customer needs, equipment, employee availability, seasonality, and temperature.
• Demand Variation – We initially apply pareto principles to deliveries to get a sense of volumes and value by customer relationship and channel. From their we focus in on the largest sources for demand variation and examine ways to improve collaboration and integration with key customers to reduce demand variation and waste.

The journey to a truly lean supply chain can be a lengthy but rewarding process.  Adroit establishes goals and milestones for the journey from ad hoc to interfaced to integrated to interlaced with both suppliers and customers.