Western Industries is more than just a fancy box manufacturer. When we get to tackle the really meaningful challenges, we can save our clients enormous sums by streamlining their supply chain.
It’s an effective way to add efficiency to an operation, but sometimes it’s a little tricky to explain. To give you a bit more insight into the benefits we can add, we thought it would be nice to walk you through the various steps in a supply chain and show you how a skillfully redesigned package or transport container can add up to real-world savings.
To do this, let’s imagine one of our clients (that’s you!) asked us to redesign the packaging for their widgets. The package now offers better strength with a smaller profile, so how does that save money?
Supplier Packaging
The first obvious savings are at production. The smaller package has lower material costs, so we’re already off to a good start.
Shipping from the Origin Point
Now we’re seeing the savings start to accumulate. Smaller packaging means that you can fit more on a truck or shipping container when the widgets are moving away from the production site.
The redesign is beginning to lower freight costs and the savings continue each time the widgets travel into the world.
Brokerage Fees
Anytime a middleman gets involved in handling or re-selling your widgets, they take a cut. Once you’ve reduced the associated shipping costs, you’ve reduced the overall product price. That means you get to enjoy lower brokerage fees as well.
Storage and Distribution Centers
Now that we can fit more of these streamlined widgets in a box, we can fit more of them on a pallet. This means that when they hit the warehouse, you need less square footage to store them.
You now have the option to downsize your storage space to save money or store more units to increase your ability to meet large orders quickly. These are challenging decisions, but a good kind of challenge!
Retail Savings
Your sleek and lean widget packaging is finally ready to hit the store shelves.
Last year you had to fight with retailers to get shelf space for your bulky widget packaging, but now you can get the same number of units on the shelves with less space, making everybody happier.
This means fewer boxes in the stockroom and less handling by employees, which should result in less breakage or loss. All this adds up to savings for the customer and more widgets flying off the shelves.
As we mentioned before, in between each of the steps there’s probably a truck, plane, or boat, which means that you get to realize freight savings each time a widget goes for a ride.
Every Product is Different
Even if you’re not producing a product that goes from factory to store shelves, you can reap the benefits of thoughtful packaging. A proper container finds that sweet spot between transport weight, ease of storage, handling, and protection.
When you can maximize all the variables effectively, you’ll reduce storage costs, transports costs, and loss due to breakage or repair. Who wouldn’t love that?
When you let Western Industries redesign your packaging, you will experience first-hand all the benefits that come from a customized solution created by some of the best designers around. You’ll have protection for your pieces while you add efficiency to your process and offer superior service to your customers.
Show Western Industries what you need boxed up, and we’ll show you how your operation can be the best there is at what you do.