Reducing RPC Leasing Costs for a Global Retailer

Grocery Retail and RPCs

At the heart of efficient supply chain operations in the Grocery Retail sector are returnable assets like crates and pallets. These assets are the invisible infrastructure that move everyday grocery like produce, dairy, floral and pharmaceuticals from growers to retail distribution points. SensDock is an innovative solution, enhancing management and tracking of these crucial assets with accurate, real-time data.

Grocery Retail Operations

Among the largest retailers in the world, customer operated multiple DCs ( Distribution Centers) across the country. Each DC served upto 100 retail stores in a region. Each DC may have multiple receiving and shipping docks, where crates loaded with goods were delivered daily. Empty crates from the stores are consolidated at DC into empty crate stack and a truck from crate pooler picks up the empties. Each DC had a Pallet Controller whose job is to keep track of returnable assets.

Navigating the B2B Challenge

Inefficiencies in tracking and management of returnable assets often lead to losses, billing disputes, and operational bottlenecks. The lack of real-time tracking resulted in increased leasing costs and discrepancies in goods received. The prevalent manual interventions further hindered efficiency, while lack of digitization limited potential reuse of these assets on a timely basis, and raised manual efforts, impacting the supply chain's productivity and financial health.

The SensDock Solution

SensDock transformed pallet control and leased asset management by providing accurate, real-time tracking of returnable assets. By integrating Vision AI and RFID technology, SensDock reduced operational inefficiencies and human errors. SensDock inspected shipments and cross-checked received goods with purchase orders, ensuring an unmatched level of accuracy and reliability. Manual overrides at receiving docks enabled checkers to have the last say on the crate counts, while reducing time spent on manual counting.

Business Results

With SensDock, Retailer achieved a 20\% reduction in cycle time for the leased assets, a 15\% reduction in checker time, and a 50\% reduction in pallet controller time. Overall, retailer cut down its leasing costs by millions of dollars. Achieving these significant benefits requires minimal investment, thanks to the utilization of off-the-shelf dock cameras. Pallet Controllers receives nightly email reports, warehouse manager gets visibility into the dock utilization and the trust into pooler services increased due to transparency.

Dashboard for Decision Making

An additional benefit of SensDock was the comprehensive dashboard that provided unparalleled visibility into supply chain operations, facilitating superior decision-making about the returnable container requirements by facility and grower sites.