Enhancing efficiency in the evolving grocery supply chain through vendor integration

C&S Wholesale Grocers is a privately-held firm headquartered in Keene, New Hampshire. C&S is a leading low-cost, high-service procurement and distribution provider servicing grocery retailers, and is the second largest grocery wholesaler in the United States.' The firm has realized average annual revenue growth of nearly 20% since 1995, and projects nearly twenty billion dollars of revenue for 2006. C&S operations are mobilized to deliver over 53,000 grocery items to more than 4,000 corporate customers "at record speed."2 Historically, C&S Wholesale Grocers has relied upon process excellence to sustain profitable growth. An internal group, the Business Process Excellence group, is currently focusing on process improvements across all areas of the C&S value chain. In support of the "BPE" team, this project focuses on "Vendor Integration", or determining the most effective processes and programs by which C&S should collaborate with its vendors to drive out supply chain costs. The goal of this thesis is to present a framework for the determination of "best-in-class" programs relating to vendor integration, programs which contribute to sustainable growth. First, a presentation of the drivers of sustainable growth is defined.

Department dc:contributor.department

Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Baer, Jeffrey C. (Jeffrey Clay)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Jonathan Byrnes and Sara Beckman.

• Sloan School of Management.
• Engineering Systems Division.
• Leaders for Manufacturing Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/37129

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/37129