Discovery Foods, the UK’s manufacturer and supplier of Mexican food and snacks, has extended its outsourcing contract with Australia-based CHEP’s outsourcing service – CHEP Equipment Management.
Discovery Foods, having sites at Milton Keynes and Daventry, has been using the service for the past year. When it first appointed CHEP Equipment Management in July 2009, the agreed priorities were to reduce pallet losses and to cut overhead costs. After 12 months, pallet losses reduced to zero.
The CHEP Equipment Management service enables customers to outsource the management of their equipment to a dedicated control team. This delivers efficiencies and cost savings as it allows the customer to focus on its core business, while CHEP Equipment Management takes care of all the equipment.
CHEP senior manager Kathryn Orange said that by using supply-chain mapping and enforcing strict documentation, they uncovered previously unknown pallet flows and now there is transparency throughout the supply chain. Discovery Foods knows where all its pallets are, costs are reduced and product flow is optimised.
Discovery Foods Supply Chain Manager Claire Lambert said that the main reason they re-appointed CHEP Equipment Management is they are pallet experts and the benefits achieved during the first year clearly show that appointing them was the right move.