Evans Distribution Systems Logo White Version
Search

Packaging and Kitting

BACKGROUND

Christmastime is crunchtime for Diageo. As the world’s largest manufacturer and marketer of premium adult beverages, Diageo is like many in the consumer retail business: The holiday season is the time to sell. Products that people want must be on the shelves or sales targets for the entire year can be missed. With a window of opportunity so brief, errors or delays are simply unacceptable.

To help manage this most important time of year, Diageo North America in Stamford, Conn., relies on Evans Distribution Systems to provide custom packing, inspection, warehousing and transportation services for point-of-sale packaging programs of its Crown Royal® product. Crown Royal is the largest selling Canadian whisky in the world, and during the holidays the spirit is sold in a variety of premium packages with collectible, hand-blown glassware.

Evans brings the pieces together for final assembly: the whisky comes in from Canada, the packaging arrives from New York, and the glassware is shipped from Asia. The component pieces are brought together by Evans via value-added premium packaging lines; they are custom assembled, warehoused onsite, and shipped to regional distribution centers according to a precise schedule.

Evans continually looks for ways to make the supply chain easier and more efficient for Diageo. It recently replaced three manual assembly lines with one semiautomated line, decreasing labor expense by 42 percent and improving productivity by 36 percent. This resulted in cost reduction without sacrificing the previous production year’s quality.

CHALLENGES

The time crunch of a holiday packaging operation requires the maximum productivity and efficiency this type of value-added service provides. In one season, Evans packaged 9 million components into 1.6 million cartons.