Addressing Beverage Challenges with Strategic Consulting and Advanced Automation Solutions
In the face of SKU proliferation, constrained warehouse spaces, and the intricacies of mixed-SKU palletization, coupled with relentless cost pressures, the Beverage Industry demands decisive leadership and strategic innovation. Executives are at the helm, steering their operations through the challenges of expanding product assortments and ever-evolving consumer expectations, to achieve peak operational efficiency and delivery excellence.
The call for innovative solutions, including the integration of advanced technologies for superior inventory management and agility, is paramount. Mastery over SKU diversity and palletization efficiency becomes not just operational necessities but strategic imperatives for sustaining competitive advantage and ensuring service superiority in a market defined by its relentless pace and complexity.
KPI Solutions specializes in addressing these issues, providing targeted solutions that streamline beverage logistics and supply chain operations. Our focus is on improving operational efficiency, enhancing inventory management, and supporting growth, helping beverage companies adapt to market demands and achieve their strategic goals with less complexity and more efficiency.
Current Challenges in Beverage Operations
With expanding portfolios, warehouse space constraints, labor challenges, client order behavior, and growing cost pressures, devising the optimal beverage warehousing and delivery strategy is more daunting than ever. Overcoming industry-wide and local geographic demands requires beverage companies to expand their thinking beyond traditional methods and strategies to allow continued growth, sustain or improve customer service levels, and achieve EBITDA goals.
(Images courtesy of NūMove Robotics & Vision)
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SKU Proliferation: Consumers are demanding more variety, leading to an increase in the number of Stock Keeping Units (SKUs). This trend complicates inventory management and order fulfillment. Warehouses must accommodate a wider variety of products and mixed-SKU pallets, necessary to fulfill diverse orders, require more sophisticated picking strategies to ensure accuracy and efficiency.
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Labor Retention & Scarcity: The beverage industry confronts critical issues with retaining skilled workers and navigating labor scarcity. This pressure necessitates strategic investments in automation and targeted training programs to maintain operational efficiency and high service standards, despite a constrained labor pool.
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Demand Forecasting and Inventory Accuracy: Navigating fluctuating consumer demands and market trends makes accurate demand forecasting and inventory management a critical challenge. Misjudgments can lead to stockouts or excess inventory, impacting customer satisfaction and resource allocation. Leveraging advanced analytics for improved accuracy is essential.
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Navigating Case Handling Complexity: Handling diverse case types amid SKU proliferation presents a significant challenge. Balancing the need for mixed-SKU pallets with precision and efficiency demands innovative strategies, as beverage companies strive to meet varied client orders while optimizing warehouse space and navigating labor constraints.
Build a Tailored & Robust Strategy for Your Business
At KPI Solutions, our goal is to provide clients with the analytical, engineering, and operations expertise necessary to achieve business objectives.
Partnering with KPI Solutions equates to aligning with a team dedicated to your business’s ever-changing business demands. Our unbiased guidance, exhaustive analysis, and industry experience empower you to make informed decisions.
Precision Distribution Consulting (PDC)
Precision Distribution Consulting (PDC), now part of KPI Solutions, offers independent, unbiased consulting for leading companies in North America’s beverage distribution networks. Our engineered solutions are based on in-depth analysis, operational excellence, and an unmatched level of detail, tailored to enhance your distribution strategy and operational efficiency.
“The team does a fabulous job looking at your layout and what you carry.
They are a great partner.”
– VP of Operations, Beverage Distributor
Consulting Services
Delivery Strategy
Beyond mere re-routing for mileage reduction, KPI assesses a multitude of factors like fleet costs, truck capacities, client time windows, and delivery frequency to optimize your delivery strategy for cost efficiency and service excellence.
Warehouse Design
Adapting to the evolving behavior of beverage portfolios, our warehouse design strategies move past traditional methods, focusing on detailed throughput and inventory analytics and modeling for a scalable, efficient warehouse design.
Advanced Warehouse Technology Evaluation
KPI guides you through evaluating and implementing advanced warehouse technologies, ensuring financial justification and long-term benefits for your operations.
Simulation
Our simulation services offer risk mitigation and efficiency optimization for facility design, capacity analysis, process re-engineering, and more, ensuring validated decisions before full-scale implementation.
- Mitigate risk by validating a new design prior to full-scale implementation
- Unlock higher levels of efficiency
- Troubleshoot key factors contributing to underperformance in the distribution center
“We’ve significantly increased our productivity and it’s been a great experience.”
– Warehouse Manager, Beverage Distributor
- Detailed warehouse design approach focused on re-purposing existing space.
- Achieved a 17.5% IRR via avoidance of overflow storage or warehouse relocation.
Why Choose KPI Solutions to Optimize Your Beverage Distribution?
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Independent Analysis: We conduct an independent analysis to determine the most suitable solution.
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Expert Guidance: Our team of experienced consultants offers objective advice.
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A Commitment to Your Growth: Partnering with KPI Solutions equates to aligning with a team dedicated to your business’s expansion.
“We were extremely pleased with the way they listened to us.”
– Director of Operations, Beverage Distributor
Automated Material Handling & Storage Systems for the Beverage Industry
Facing challenges such as labor shortages, SKU proliferation, and the need for faster operations, the beverage industry seeks efficiency and accuracy. KPI Solutions delivers conveying, palletizing, and storage systems, enabling swift adaptation to market demands through consulting, automation, robotics, and LifeTime Services.
Automated Case Handling
Rising operational costs, high employee turnover, and frequent errors in case handling significantly hinder your market delivery speeds. These inefficiencies not only diminish your bottom line but also place undue stress on your supply chain. In response, we provide customized automated case handling solutions designed to streamline both the breakdown and pallet building processes essential for efficient order fulfillment and distribution.
By introducing automation, we aim to notably reduce manual labor demands—addressing a key factor in employee turnover—while simultaneously boosting operational efficiency and accuracy. This approach not only enhances speed and consistency across operations but also contributes to substantial cost savings and a more stable workforce.
(Images courtesy of NūMove Robotics & Vision)
Inter-Building Transport
We employ advanced Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) and sophisticated conveyance systems designed for efficient, reliable pallet and case transport within the warehouse. These systems optimize material flow, minimize handling time, and reduce the risk of product damage, ensuring a smooth, continuous operation.
- Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs)
- Case Conveyor
- Pallet Conveyor
AS/RS
Our AS/RS solutions are designed to drastically improve storage density and retrieval efficiency in beverage warehouses. By automating storage and retrieval processes, these systems minimize the need for manual intervention, optimize space utilization, and enhance inventory accuracy. Suitable for a variety of beverage products, AS/RS technology adapts to changing inventory levels and demands, providing a scalable, flexible storage solution that grows with your business.
“We’ve driven huge efficiencies into the warehouse.”
– Warehouse Manager, Beverage Distributor
