PRW operators get advice on improving efficiency and profitability.

More than 160 refrigerated warehouse operators, suppliers and allied industry representatives gathered in Amsterdam Feb. 25-26 to attend the 11th European Cold Chain Logistics Education Program, organized by the Global Cold Chain Alliance. Delegates from 18 European countries, South Africa, Iran, the USA, Canada and Mexico set an attendance record for the annual event.

Participants heard Unilever's Rene van Gerwen, the company's Holland-based global lead engineer in charge of refrigeration and HVAC, discuss details concerning a relatively new supply chain model. Put into action during 2006 with the establishment of the Unilever Supply Chain Company (USCC), it covers everything from logistics management to buying, production, warehousing and primary transportation operations.

The aims of the model are to increase margins, reduce costs and improve service, in part by optimizing the distribution network. In reducing the number of warehouses used by the Unilever, from 600 in 2005 to 250 in 2010, USCC aims to trim logistics expenditures by 15%. During 2007 alone, distribution costs were estimated at upwards of 1.5 billion euros.

The USCC allows the company to remove traditional boundaries between product categories as well as countries. Furthermore, it provides insight to all logistics flows, including raw materials and packaging.

The importance of performance benchmarking in the food distribution industry was addressed by United Kingdom-based Roger Watkins of Scale Consulting. He told delegates that manufacturers, retailers and logistics service providers in the food sector have to more carefully monitor the efficiency of their distribution activities to better measure the cost of service and to obtain insight in opportunities for improvement.

Watkins stressed that company executives need to remember that whatever it was that got them where they are today, such will not be good enough on its own to maintain that position tomorrow. "Benchmarking should be an embedded operational discipline, not an occasional accounting exercise," he commented.

Two of the main priorities of refrigerated warehouse operators, energy costs and productivity, were the themes of sessions on the second day of the conference. Delegates learned about how a Dutch coldstore saves energy, improves productivity and operates a fully automated storage process with a single warehouse management system. They also found out how an Irish PRW has reduced energy costs by 15% through the utilization of wind turbine power; how the use of fast battery chargers saves operational costs and increases productivity for a Canadian warehousing company; and how the use of solar panels positively affects energy supply and efficiency at a coldstore in the USA.