Simonds Farsons Cisk – shortlisted for the Most Innovative Business Enterprises Award (annual turnover more than €10 million)
The liberalisation of the carbonated soft drinks market in 2008 was a real and present challenge for the industry in Malta. The only way to remain healthily in business for Simonds Farsons Cisk was to rethink its business model and reshape it.
“Simonds Farsons Cisk began looking for innovative solutions to restructure its business model and related processes in order to satisfy the changing market needs, and maintain its competitive edge,” group chief executive Norman Aquilina said.
“As a result, among other things, this brought about a new logistics centre which has delivered a leaner and more competitive set-up, achieving significant cost reductions, increased efficiency and higher quality standards.”
The company decided that all warehousing and distribution operations would be centralised into one location. By January 2005, the plans and the technical designs for the new logistics centre were finalised and in January 2008 the new logistics centre was fully operational.
“The new centralised site has a much smaller footprint than what was previously available through various depots and warehouses. We therefore opted for a very narrow aisle storage system with pallet racking extending to the height of 14 metres giving it a storage capacity of 12,400 pallets,” head of logistics Christopher Borg Cardona explained.
The logistics centre has one of the largest storage and highest racking capacities in the Maltese Islands. Special sensor-guided forklift trucks were obtained to navigate the warehouse aisles and reach the heights required. The centre is also equipped with temperature-controlled storage areas to keep sensitive beverages in their optimum storage condition.
This centralised set-up brought about a reduction in the required delivery trucks and related carbon footprint, compared to the previous set-up, apart from resulting in a newly acquired Euro IV standard distribution fleet.
Another innovative aspect was the introduction of a warehouse management system which controls the movement and storage of products within the logistics centre and the routing and dispatching of orders while processing the associated transactions.
“The logistics centre has brought significant increases in efficiency, quality control and customer service, giving the company a competitive edge over several of its competitors. This centre allows us to provide greater flexibility in meeting customer demands. In addition it is friendlier to the environment and minimises inventory handling; helping us to improve our human and capital resource and invest further in people,” said Mr Borg Cardona.