Ink manufacturer Flint Group won new business by using CHEP systems to shorten its supply chain from the Netherlands to Australia
August 28, 2012
Ink manufacturer Flint Group won new business by using CHEP systems to shorten its supply chain from the Netherlands to Australia
Flint Group Sales Director for Print
Media ANZ Paul Lamberti says moving from a closed loop system using in-house drums and tanks to working with CHEP was a big step.
But the change assisted in securing the business of a major customer and has shortened the supply chain from the Netherlands to Australia by up to two weeks.
“This is the first time we’ve worked with CHEP boxes,” Lamberti says.
“We got rid of double-handling; the boxes are filled at our factory in Europe and go straight to our customer in Australia.”
Flint Netherlands ships around 250 tonnes a month of its flagship product Premoking 4000 in Unicons to Flint Australia’s customer.
Once emptied, the boxes are returned to CHEP Lidcombe Service Centre for cleaning and then relocated back directly into Flint Netherlands, reducing handling and transport.
CHEP also supplies Flint with a specially designed ink liners.
One of
Flint Group’s
key obstacles to securing the new business was that neither Australia nor Europe had enough Unicon stock to handle the volumes necessary.
The CHEP US team stepped up to provide the necessary equipment in a very short time frame.
Flint Group’s Denise Taylor was on the frontline, working with CHEP to make it all happen.
“We had an opportunity to supply a particular customer and the time frame was very short,” Taylor says.
“They had a delivery system in place, so it was a case of finding the right contact at CHEP and pulling it together, which we did with no hassle at all.”
In addition, Taylor came up with a clever solution to bridge the eight-week gap in the supply chain before the Unicons arrived from Europe.
“Filling CHEP boxes from our drums at the Sydney facility was a simple solution until the supply from the Netherlands caught up – and it was seamless,” Denise says.
It is working so well that Flint Group is considering replicating the model in the US.