Nestlé UK - Case study: Fewer transport miles
Better utilisation of vehicles, training drivers, sharing
transport with others in the food industry and regionalising
its delivery network have led to significant reductions in
Nestlé's transport needs.
The company works with IGD to find ways to reduce
distribution impacts, in particular through a collaborative
distribution initiative with customers and other food
companies led by IGD's Efficient Consumer Response
programme. For instance: collaboration with United
Biscuits resulted in both food companies reducing the
empty running of vehicles by more than 280,000 km
since 2007.
And closer working with Asda during Easter
2008 decreased Nestlé's travel by 110,000 km. As a
result, Nestlé has been able to take more than a million
kilometres worth of empty or inefficient truck journeys off
the roads since 2007.
Nestlé has developed a 'linked journey' operating policy,
which minimises the proportion of vehicles on the road
and the number of journeys needed. As a result, the
company has achieved less than 12% empty-running of its
fleet (compared to a 24% industry average).
In 2005, Nestlé began to regionalise its delivery network
which has reduced the distance its products travel and
sees each lorry carrying more stock. This has reduced
its annual travel by 1.4 million kilometres (since 2005). At
the beginning of 2009, the transport operations of Cereal
Partners UK were integrated with Nestlé UK leading to a
further reduction in empty running vehicles of 300,000 kms
per year.
By using a careful loading pattern to reduce wasted space,
the company has increased lorry loads by one tonne, to
an average total of 23 tonnes, reducing unproductive miles.
Trailers travelling from factories to its distribution centres
carry two more tonnes than in 2006.
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