Quality Produce, Quality Slotting

Open Access
- Author:
- Jackson, Griffin
- Area of Honors:
- Supply Chain and Information Systems
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Robert Alexander Novack, Thesis Supervisor
John C Spychalski, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- Produce
Grocery
Distribution Center
Product Velocity
Pick to Store - Abstract:
- Within the walls of a distribution center, storage and picking locations are often a reactive procedure of what is on hand. Although efficiencies can still be achieved via reactive based decisions, not all supply chains can afford this practice while maintaining their differentiation strategy. For grocers, time and produce quality is a negative correlation—as time passes from the point of ripeness, quality will naturally decrease. Gathering, scrubbing, analyzing, and implementing precise historical data can improve in-house efficiencies while upholding quality. The purpose of this thesis is to determine the optimal plan for when a large grocer retailer should move certain produce out of list-pick and into pick-to-store. This plan was developed by analyzing historical velocity needed to fulfill this area of the grocer’s market in the past. As the new distribution center opens, it will open with a plan in place of where items should be picked depending on the current month. It is in the form of a Microsoft Excel worksheet—the engine for this grocer’s data analysis. It is a tool that is dynamic in capturing the shifting peaks of velocity for all items of produce. A pick location for one item during this month may not be the optimal pick location in the next month. Knowing when these shifts of pick-locations are approaching decreases future complexities.