Food & Beverage

• 50% Estimated Reduction in Order Placement Times
• Overall Efficiency and Productivity Gains
• 62% Estimated Reduction in Add-On Orders

When grocery store customers want the freshest ingredients and meals, the stores’ owners turn to wholesale food distributors who can deliver products quickly and accurately. But as one wholesaler learned the hard way, small inefficiencies in the ordering process led to a cornucopia of issues down the line.

• 68% Improvement in avg. meat trimmed per pound/hour
• 6.4% Improvement in trim yield
• 2.2% improvement in final yield
• 80% reduction in cooked product over target weight
• 46% reduction in raw end piece losses

After completing a major expansion of one of their meat processing plants, they wanted to improve their product flow and yield, but without incurring additional costs.

• 15% increase in line efficiency
• $11 Million in cost savings
• 10:1 return on invested capital (2-year)

The firm hadn’t decided if the new company was going to be held, or turned around and subsequently sold, but they knew they needed to improve their operations. USCCG was brought in to help them to better leverage the existing assets by improving productivity, throughput, and material yields.

• 22% Reduction in baseline corrugated spending
• $2 Million in Cost Savings

Our client was looking to reduce their corrugated packaging spend as a result of increased volumes and a $100 per ton increase in the cost of pulp and paper over the previous year. Their suppliers were two of the largest in the industry, but since they were small relative to the suppliers’ other clients, they lacked the leverage needed to attain the best pricing and service levels.

• $100 Million in total financial impact across all plants
• 15% reduction in labor cost/pound in the fresh plant (pilot)
• 35% reduction in labor cost/pound in the cook plant (pilot)
• 1.4% yield improvement in the fresh plant (pilot)
• 6.1% yield improvement in the cook plant (pilot)

Faced with rising costs and relentless competition, our client attempted to “buy their way to profitability” through large capital investments in technology and process automation. However, higher overhead costs soon ate away at the gains that were made.

• $2.4 million annualized projected savings from crewing adjustments
• $1.2 million annualized projected savings from yield and throughput improvements

For an heirloom business spanning three generations, our client already possessed a commendable Management Operating System (MOS). Managers and supervisors already employed many of the visual and collaborative tools conducive to operational excellence. However, several missteps related to reporting and accountability held the organization back from succeeding and eroded its margins.

• $3 million annualized savings through higher throughput, higher yield, lower external spend, and lower labor costs
• 50% increase in capacity
• $1 million reduction in material costs

An industry-leading dessert maker specializing in thaw-and-serve sweets, recently acquired by a private equity firm, partners with retailers and food-service companies across the country. The CEO requested a detailed operational analysis across its multi-plant supply chain to identify opportunities that would generate a near-term significant EBITDA impact.

• 20% Increase in Throughput
• $2 million Annualized Savings in Labor Expenses
• 25% Productivity Improvement

The organization connected with USC Consulting Group intent on increasing revenue by improving productivity, increasing throughput and reducing overhead expenses. USCCG consultants conducted a three-week feasibility study to determine the project scope. This initial research revealed issues distributed across the maintenance, operations, and quality assurance functions. 

• 23% Labor improvement companywide
• $2.3 million in savings on yearly yield

The client was going through some changes in market conditions and growth. Couple that with a yield problem, and they needed some outside help. The client needed more efficient operating procedures to deal with these marketplace changes that led to workplace changes that led to yield trouble. It needed to be more flexible and agile to adjust to market conditions, and also deliver ROI.

• 4:1 Return On Investment
• Eliminated Waste
• Increased Uptime, Capacity & Throughput

The company was coming off a good year and wanted to continue that upward momentum but their production facility was 125+ years old and was showing its age. People would have to walk through a maze to get from one part of the facility to the other, and that wasn’t conducive to efficient operation. The result was not being able to keep up with production, bottlenecks and a lack of storage. 

• 30 job descriptions were consolidated into four tightly defined roles, increasing workforce flexibility
• First hour productivity increased 35%
  

The client had recently been acquired by a European-based corporation seeking expansion. As a result, the company needed to globalize their supply chain. They had already shut down two older plants and were building one newer, more modern facility. Two years into construction, the transition to the new facility was over budget and behind schedule. 

• 30% reduction in packaging waste
• $16 million in client savings
• 24% improved labor productivity per hour
  

A four-year-old case ready plant wanted to improve line efficiency and labor productivity. To complicate matters, the plant had 40 production lines and a highly automated packaging department that produced over 2 million pounds of beef and pork products per week. A management operating system was needed to manage the large number of SKUs, lines and variability in the product mix to meet the demands of the client’s sole customer, a nationwide supermarket chain.