EFFICIENT UNIT LOADS - ECR Community

To assess today’s unit load situation, a survey was
conducted by A.T. Kearney among 25 leading
European companies, representing a grocery turnover
of more than ECU 85 bn. Twelve European countries
were covered.
The survey focused on the following key areas:
• Use of different transport and storage items
• Reasons for using specific transport and
storage items
• Performance of all unit loads currently in use
• Principles for managing reusable transport
items
• Use of existing standards
• Bottlenecks blocking the introduction of EUL
• Potential drivers for change
• Extent of agreement and disagreement
between manufacturers and retailers.
Figure 5: Disjointed supply chains
Distribution of product volume shipped according to unit load type
0.0%
1.7%
1.6%
35.5%
0.0%
61.2%
Tertiary Unit Loads
100%
Manufacturers
100%
Retailers
Other
Roll cage
1,200 x 1,000 pallet
Source: A.T. Kearney Survey, Efficient Unit Loads project
2.8%
64.0%
2.3% 0.5%
27.9%
600 x 400 pallet
800 x 600 pallet
1,200 x 800 pallet
2.5%
Out of 25 responses, 14 were given by manufacturers,
representing some ECU 39 bn in turnover, and eleven
were given by retailers, with turnover amounting to
ECU 46 bn.
Today’s unit loads are not the optimum solution.
Current supply chains are disjointed
where the two half chains meet
The assortment creation point in the supply chain,
usually the retail distribution centre (RDC), is the main
point of disruption. Figure 5 shows that more than two
thirds of all products are repacked at the tertiary
packaging level, mostly involving a change from pallets
to roll cages (from 0 % outbound MDC to 64 %
outbound RDC).
The Efficient Unit Loads Report 17
0.0%
17.1%
4.5%
76.1%
2.3%
Secondary Unit Loads
100%
100%
Manufacturers Retailers
Other
One-way, modular
Returnable, modular
0.3%
31.0%
21.9%
46.8%
0.0%
One-way, non-modular
Returnable, non-modular