Supply Chain Excellence Awards 2019: The Citti Magazine Award for Transport Innovation

Working with a multitude of manufacturers, logistics suppliers and retailers Transport Innovation Award winner CHEP has identify opportunities for collaboration using movement data.

Its winning entry cited an example with Heinz, which had been returning over 4,500 containers empty every year. Working with CHEP some 200 containers were reloaded at a CHEP service centre in the UK and returned to a factory in the Netherlands. As a result, 129 tonnes of CO2 were saved with 69,000 kilometres taken out of its transport operations.

CHEP’s entry also detailed work with Danone Waters: trains delivering Evian from France to the UK were returning empty. Through its Transport Collaboration initiative, CHEP agreed to pay a fixed cost per pallet to use Danone’s empty trains, instead of sending trucks from the UK. Danone Waters generated additional revenue of ‎€349,000 and 507 less trucks travelled to the Danone factory, saving 381 tons of CO₂.

As testament to the wider project’s success, between July 2018 and April 2019, the initiative saved CHEP customers 873 tonnes of CO₂ as well as delivering 870,000 km of empty truck miles. In the past five years more than 200 customers have signed up to the initiative, saving 6,500 tonnes of carbon emissions and reducing empty truck journeys by 6,600,000km.

Highly commended in this category were Travis Perkins. Its wide-ranging entry covered vehicle safety systems (such as multi-view cameras) on its HGV fleet; driver training in collaboration with LoCITY and counter terrorism; recruitment and retention systems and sustainable operations across its 2,000 unit fleet. Standing out in its entry was its use of virtual reality to deliver safe urban driving awareness.

Peter Murphy, transport solutions manager, Northern Europe, at CHEP said: “Winning this award is a great achievement. It’s a European initiative, so it’s especially great for all our colleagues in Europe. It’s a reward for years of hard work. It was hard and difficult to start up this initiative in the beginning, develop it from scratch, but absolutely necessary for the future. It means zero waste – both in terms of physical waste and transportation – and lots of dead mileage that we can save, which is great.”

Highly Commended: Travis Perkins

Shortlisted: iPort Rail; Nisa Retail with DHL

The 24th Supply Chain Excellence Awards will take place on 12 November 2020. The awards are a celebration of all things supply chain and all entrants are put through their paces – including presenting to a panel of their peers – to ensure only the best win the coveted award.

For more information, including how to enter and sponsorship opportunities, and to register your interest go to: Supplychainexcellenceawards.com