Nuts About Efficiency: A Fruitful Journey in Inventory Management For A Fruit and Nut Company

This company is a leading manufacturer of fruit and nuts, distributed as private brands and branded products. They supply organic and conventional Fruit & Nuts to leading grocery retailers, foodservice distributors, and industrial bakeries across North America. They offer a full range of high-quality conventional and organic assortments for a full line and unique flavor profiles. Having nimble production capabilities allows this company to have smaller batch sizes and full customization for their customers.  

To learn more about MSC’s BNA, our unbiased process, and data assessment of your indirect supply chain, designed to identify customized solutions to empower performance, generate savings and maximize profit potential, call us at 800.645.7270. 

_{* While the customer information is confidential, the story and results are real.} 

Inventory Visibility and Management, Long lead times, Multiple PO’s & quotes, Data Visibility, Product Availability & Standardization 

Conducted an extensive operational site assessment through MSC’s Business Needs Analysis (BNA) to identify opportunities to achieve this customer’s goals for an automated and strategic inventory management solution.

Goals included:

• Inventory control for greater visibility and management 

• On hand inventory reduction and consumption  

• Improve product lead time  

• Supplier Consolidation, PO reduction, quote reduction 

• Improved data visibility 

ControlPoint® Vending and VMI, mscdirect.com

• Installed Point-of-use ControlPoint® Vending Machines and implemented VMI  

• Optimized inventory – reduced on-hand inventory, reduced lead times 

• Supplier reduction and order consolidation 

• Standardized products to improve availability  

• Customized reporting with 24/7 visibility of inventory

Projected cost savings of $265,210 in the first year 

• 6% On hand Inventory Reduction 

• 15% Inventory Consumption reduction  

• 3% Freight savings on annual spend 

• Redirect associates to focus on other high value projects 

• Reduction in TCO and time spent monitoring inventory  

Established a cadence of quarterly Customer Improvement Reviews (CIR) at which MSC and the customer collectively review a “scorecard” to evaluate progress on identified goals and look for improvement opportunities. In addition, we continue to work with our specialist teams and the customer to identify improvement initiatives to keep their team at their highest levels of productivity.