CHEP expands scope of ideation sessions to uncover greater customer opportunities to increase efficiency, decrease damage, reduce costs and improve sustainability. Customers saved more than $1 million with CHEP Packaging Performance Solutions. Chicago, Illinois - During a presentation at ProMat, CHEP’s Ben Eugrin, Director of Supply Chain Solutions, and Mohammad Ansari, Senior Manager of Product Development, briefed attendees on CHEP’s proprietary ideation session methodology and the value it creates for customer supply chains. They also discussed the $1 million in packaging performance savings for customers through collaboration with CHEP. “CHEP has a wealth of end-to-end supply chain knowledge, experience and expertise,” said Mr. Eugrin. “But the secret to our supply chain solutions success is our strong commitment to true collaboration with our customers. We bring together customer representatives from across all functions in the supply chain and expand their understanding of value creating opportunities well beyond pallet operations. That is what our ideation sessions are all about, and the results speak for themselves.” CHEP has conducted many collaborative, cross-functional ideation sessions with customers over the past few months, identifying supply chain efficiency opportunities and developing innovative solutions that save time and generate sustainability savings. CHEP’s ideation sessions bring together all supply chain functional areas, including packaging, planning, operations and logistics to identify the highest value targets. Recent Ideation Sessions have covered transportation, store fulfillment, sustainability, distribution center operations and inbound order optimization. In addition, Mr. Eugrin and Mr. Ansari outlined how CHEP’s Packaging Performance Solutions resulted in more than $1 million in savings and significant return on investment for customers, including:
  • A beverage manufacturer saved $500,000 with new bottles, optimized corrugate weight and adjusted stretch wrap thickness – a return on the company’s investment of 400%.
  • A tissue manufacturer saved $320,000 by switching to recycled corrugate for its secondary packaging.
  • A private label manufacturer saved $200,000 by eliminating slip sheets when transporting its pre-moistened wipes.  
CHEP is currently engaged with a large frozen food company to reduce carton damage. CHEP is developing innovative solutions to reduce carton damage resulting from warehouse stacking, transportation vibration, environmental conditions, package handling and unit load deflection. “Our data shows 90% of product damage takes place in the final, retail stage of the supply chain, while 10% takes place between manufacturing, shipping and handling at distribution centers. At CHEP, we can help customers reduce damage at either end of the supply chain, as well as optimize primary and secondary packaging and unit load design to help more product survive the rigors of the modern-day supply chain,” concluded Mr. Eugrin.  Over a 12-month period, customers that teamed up with CHEP to refine their supply chains generated more than $30 million in savings and new revenue. During that same period, customers made their supply chain operations more environmentally sustainable by eliminating more than 3.5 million empty truck miles from their transportation networks. This resulted in a reduction of 13 million pounds of CO2 emissions.