When CHEP South Africa was presented with an opportunity to pitch for a pallet pooling and service solution to Amalgamated Beverage Industries (ABI), the soft drink division of South African Breweries Limited and Coca-Cola South Africa’s biggest bottling partner, it knew the right approach was to focus on the total cost of the customer’s supply chain.
Coca-Cola's Karthi Naicker and CHEP's Estée Grobler at the ABI Bottling Plant
in Johannesburg, South Africa.
 
Rather than presenting a standard sales pitch, CHEP conducted a comprehensive value chain analysis of ABI’s entire supply chain, at no cost to ABI, to help identify opportunities to reduce waste and inefficiency.
CHEP developed a financial model detailing ABI’s existing total cost of pallet ownership, which formed the baseline against which it was able to quantify the value its pallet pooling solution could add.
CHEP’s value chain analysis covered ABI’s five bottling plants near Durban, Pretoria and Johannesburg and involved collaborating with more than 100 ABI people as well as with its suppliers and customers.
CHEP did not limit the study to pallets. It also gathered information on supply chain waste, inefficiency and costs more widely, making for a more thorough proposal and effective solution for ABI, its suppliers and customers.
Based on the data CHEP gathered during this analysis, the team created a customised proposal and continuous improvement plan, incorporating pallet supply, repair, transport and control elements in a total pallet service package specifically for ABI.
Ultimately, the process resulted in CHEP and ABI agreeing to embark on a partnering relationship, under which CHEP began delivery of its total pallet service in March 2011. The next step is to integrate ABI’s inbound and outbound supply chain, further improving efficiency in its total supply chain network.
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