Optimization of the inbound logistics of fresh products in the retail industry: Carrefour case study

Supply chain is a science in constant evolution. More than ever before, the climate impact and the COVID crisis are fundamental criteria to consider when updating the supply chain organization while maintaining a certain service level to keep up with the competition. The application of this challenge is the main focus of this project within the supply chain for fresh products of a Belgian supermarket. We focused on one part of the chain which is the inbound logistics where our objective was to improve the palletization of the products received in order to increase the number of packages per pallet delivered. This will reduce, on the one hand, the costs of receiving pallets because there will be fewer pallets delivered and, on the other hand, it will also reduce the carbon emissions related to transportation. To do so, we looked for the ideal command of the reference and compared it to the actual command. Depending on the result, different implementations were possible such as increasing the rounding profile or changing the slot. We were able to obtain a result of 149 pallets saved for a total of 12 references for the moment. The data related to these implementations being not very representative, we concluded that a total of up to 360 pallets could be saved. However, this has opened up other perspectives for improving the supply chain, whose main challenge is to adapt to current issues.