Reduction of Fuel Consumption for Logistics
Shippers use a series of ground transportation modes as a part of normal supply chain management. Whether shippers are moving raw materials into a plant, moving finished goods as stock transfer orders intra-company or moving finished goods to a customer, ground transportation remains a necessary resource. In 2019, trucking alone represented 80.4% of the US’s freight cost [1].
Fuel consumption for trucking can vary from 4.51 mpg to 6.53 mpg, depending on the shipping location within the US [2]. Rising fuel costs, higher lane rates, or fuel surcharges are impacting already strained supply chain transportation costs. Using a 500-mile lane with an average fuel consumption rate, the fuel cost is greater than $516, depending on the lane.
The ability to mitigate rising fuel costs is a top concern for transportation and supply chain managers. A logistics manager at a well-known Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) company shared some insight about the effort to manage the current market, “We are looking at every option to try and manage costs because not only have costs gone up, but supply is difficult to find as well.” Unfortunately, this is an all-too-common perspective.
Reduce Fuel Consumption with ALOE Group
At ALOE Group, our team can lead an effort to reduce fuel consumption for you! We will evaluate the current packaging and pallet configuration profiles and compare the results to multiple predictive alternative structures. This will result in more cases per pallet, leading to more cases per container. Normalizing for volume results in fewer trucks needed in aggregate. A fuel savings calculation is generated based on the reduction of trucks per lane for each stock keeping unit (SKU) involved.
ALOE Group will also consider, evaluate and verify the packaging implications of changing the cases per layer or layers per pallet. Our team understands static and dynamic top loads and pallet stability to ensure product integrity during shipment. ALOE Group leverages the package engineering resources of its parent, Stress Engineering Services, to evaluate performance and compare it to current pallet and packaging performance. This work is typically done at your manufacturing site, with supplemental testing performed at the Mason, OH labs.
The implications of fuel savings are part of larger cost savings with reduced SKU transactions.
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