Optimizing the Flow of Pallets in Circulation for Retailers

A company dealing in pallet and container pooling services, serving customers in a range of industrial and retail supply chains, required the support of RGIS. The company currently manage, maintain, transport and supply approximately 330 million platforms that are shared and reused by growers, manufacturers, distributors and retailers.

REQUIREMENTS
Having worked together previously for counting and reporting on the condition of pallets, the company approached RGIS to help support them in optimizing the flow of pallets in circulation throughout Mexico.

  • The pallet pooling service provider required RGIS to provide the following:
  • An experienced team of RGIS auditors out in the field visiting retailers
  • Accurately count all pallets and capture information about the condition of the pallets
  • All data to be captured and reported electronically

SOLUTION
The pallet pooling service provider partnered with RGIS to complete the pallet flow optimization project, and RGIS provided the following:

  • Scheduled an experienced team of approximately 30 RGIS auditors in the field and two RGIS auditors at the control desk
  • Both RGIS teams were trained to detect opportunities and risks in the operations while on visits, as well as filling out printed reports and uploading information onto a third-party platform utilized by the customer
  • A control desk was set up to enable RGIS teams to be monitored in real time, so reports could be instantly validated and uploaded on to the third-party platform
  • During the visits, RGIS field teams counted the number of pallets available, to make sure there were no problems with the collections. In cases where there was surplus stock, pallet collections were requested. Also reporting of any pallets that were not kept safely

RESULTS
The pallet pooling service provider found that by outsourcing the pallet flow optimization project to RGIS, the following results were achieved:

  • RGIS accurately audit approximately 900 locations per month as requested by the customer, and this will increase over time
  • The audits were carried out satisfactorily, and the customer was very happy
  • Going forward, RGIS plan to merge the pallet optimization project with the pallet inspection audits across retailers to provide a more unified solution