Results/Consumer Goods Distribution
Consumer Goods Distribution · National DistributorNational consumer goods distributor: 13 warehouses to 5 and 20 percent off supply chain costs
EngagementNetwork design and optimization
ScopeNational warehouse network
$8Ma year in transportation and warehousing savings
13→5warehouses, with service levels held
20%reduction in supply chain costs
Situation
A national distributor of consumer goods had grown through acquisition and inherited a network of 13 warehouses with overlapping territories. Transportation and warehousing costs were rising faster than revenue, and inventory sat in the wrong places: excess stock in some warehouses, shortages in others. Cameo Consulting was engaged to redesign the network.
Approach
- Baselined the current network: every facility, flow, and cost, built from the company's own shipment and inventory data.
- Ran a greenfield analysis to identify where distribution centers should sit if the network were designed from scratch.
- Benchmarked current freight spend against market rates to size the transportation opportunity.
- Modeled network scenarios against cost and service level requirements to find the design worth building.
Results
- Supply chain costs reduced by about 20 percent, worth $8M a year in transportation and warehousing.
- Warehouse footprint consolidated from 13 sites to 5 while meeting service level requirements.
- Additional working capital opportunities identified in inventory that no longer needs to sit in duplicate locations.
What made it work: The scenarios ran on the company's own shipment data, not industry averages. Leadership could see the cost and service math for each option before committing to a single move.
About Cameo Consulting
Cameo Consulting is a Chicago-based boutique consultancy that helps mid-market companies find the money in their supply chains and build the systems that keep it.