Monday, October 20, 2008

COSTCO PACKAGING ADVANTAGE

Business Week has an excellent article on COSTCO

Costco's Artful Discounts
Tons of gold nuggets in there. The one below really stuck out.

Costco has even gotten vendors to redesign product packages to fit more items on a pallet, the wooden platforms it uses to ship and display its goods. Putting cashews into square containers instead of round ones will decrease the number of pallets shipped by 24,000 this year, cutting the number of trucks by 600. By reshaping everything from laundry detergent buckets to milk jugs, Costco has needed 200,000 fewer pallets a year overall.
[Ed: Bold added]

Some quick math indicates that is [24000 / 600 =] 40 pallets per truck.
How much fuel and a labor cost is saved from not making these 600 truck trips? Just thinking about it, you know the savings are significant. All that from redesigning the package for one item.

Questions:
  • Are you open to rethinking your processes, products and services?
  • How are you redesigning [AKA: Thinkovating] to increase productivity?

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I love Coscto! Great store

Anonymous said...

Costco is a great store. In their monthly magazine, The Costco Connection, they have been adding more information about their green friendly products. So, it is no surprise they continue to find new methods to reduce expenses and maintain their high quality.

Very good post, thanks for bringing more attention to Costco’s efforts. They are green friendly!

Jessica Gottlieb said...

I just ran across this.

I think it's fantastic, every company should be thinking this way, every gallon of diesel we don't burn is an investment in our children, ourselves and our earth.

It's nice that it works well economically too.