Journal of Food Processing & Technology

SCM competitive advantage through technology transformation of a Napa Valley winery: A case study

Joint Conference on 8^th World Congress on Agriculture and Horticulture and 16^th Euro Global Summit on Food and Beverages

March 02-04, 2017 Amsterdam, Netherlands

Prashanth Kotha and Atul Mirje

Deloitte Consulting, USA

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Food Process Technol

Abstract:

In the highly competitive Food and Beverage industry with wafer thin margins, a fundamental competitive edge is essential to survive and thrive. With competition matching each other in product line depth and distribution width, supply chain management stands out as a core transformational area and promises a lasting competitive advantage. A key pillar of a robust and competitive supply chain is Technology which smoothens the product movement and leads to a lasting competitive advantage, difficult to imitate in a medium term. In Napa Valley, the legendary wine country with exquisite wines, one of the oldest wineries was battling with low order cycle time, inventory and put away inaccuracy, high breakage and handling costs and high packing time. A strategic assessment of the operational inefficiencies led to a technology transformation to have a unified enterprise resource system and automation in production area, warehousing and retrieval. It resulted in a significant operational improvement in the key performance indicators for the winery and gave it a sustainable competitive advantage. The benefits were evident in manufacturing, warehousing and logistics and shipping processes with complementary improvement in distribution and sales. In this presentation, we will focus on the technology roadmap, supply chain process blueprint, comparison of key performance indicators before and after the technology transformation and critical success factors in this food and beverage industry segment.

Biography :

Email: amirje@deloitte.com