A great fit for every shoe

Billerud helped a global footwear producer to reduce costs substantially. By completely redesigning its transport packaging portfolio and integrating the shoes with the packaging, the brand owner could make savings on both transport volumes and transport routes in addition to making a significant contribution to the environment.

Sometimes more packaging saves resources

Are your transport and product packaging solutions working together to be as efficient as possible? Our solutions are customized for your unique packaging supply chain and are designed to lower your total cost, reduce packaging damage during transport and create the impact your brand requires. The use of world-leading corrugated materials ensures you get strong and attractive transport and retail packaging.
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Challenge

Our customer was a significant fashion shoe producer with production in Asia, for transport mainly to European and American markets. The company’s shoe box design was not optimised for the product, or the supply chain. Only six of the primary packaging sizes fitted well, which led to excessive packaging and, in turn, unnecessary costs throughout the transport chain. The utilisation of container space was poor, which resulted in unnecessary shipments from east to west. In addition, the packaging quality was inconsistent with the customer’s branding needs.

Solution

Our technical team reviewed the whole value chain in order to achieve improvements and cost savings. The number of carton sizes was increased from 6 to 24, which resulted in an optimised packaging fit for more footwear products. New carton assignment processes were also created with improved packaging materials specified. This optimised the packaging and the overall supply chain.

Result

The customer benefited from exceptional operational savings. Reduction in freight costs alone yielded savings of an impressive $1.3 million, just in the first year. The direct savings from packaging were also substantial due to leveraging volumes and a change to better materials. Another factor contributing to savings was an increase in the reuse of inbound packaging for outbound use. This resulted in significant improvements of the company’s sustainability performance.

Highlights

Direct savings Indirect savings
Reduced freight costs first year: $1.3 million Simplicity for OEMs with one point of contact
Packaging savings: 15% Increased efficiency in DC operations

Additional Resources

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