In today’s ever-changing and fractured landscape, it can be a challenge to manage components of your supply chain – especially when it comes to packaging. There’s a lot to juggle.
Whether you have a production team member managing procurement or an entire team, getting ahead of Supply Chain challenges and having a Plan B (and even Plan C) in place can alleviate a lot of headache, and prevent out of stocks that can damage your brand or put chain placements at risk.
Forecasting
While it can be tempting to follow Just-in-Time strategy when it comes to ordering – each component and ingredient has its own lead time ahead of a production run, making that a more challenging prospect than simply hitting “order” when you’re ready to go.
Forecasting for packaging components starts with understanding consumer demand (or expectation if you’re expanding distribution) and working backwards. Once you understand how much flexibility you have in supplying distributors, you can determine how long your on-hand stock will last to then work with your component partners to understand when you need to schedule your next run of bottles, closures, and labels.
Supply Flexibility
Redundancy in your supply partners isn’t often top of mind for packaging components, but in this climate having a backup plan is always a good option. Having contacts and the option to pivot on supply can be a game changer if costs jump for reasons outside of your control. And having those plans in place (or at least the relationships established) can help make shifting from one partner to the next much smoother.
Quality Control
Growth, Tariffs, and raw material access aren’t the only things to consider when evaluating your packaging component supplier network. Having a strong quality controls in place is also important to ensuring that you can get your product where it needs to be on time and on budget.
Testing components, or working with a company who can, can save you a lot of headache when you get to packaging time. From testing closure fit to ensuring your can liner is what you need it to be, double checking with quality controls can ensure that you’re not putting out product that isn’t up to standard.
Communication in Logistics
While no one can predict when a container ship will block the Suez Canal (or whatever is next), over-communication can be a valuable tool in managing expectations. From checking in with copackers regularly to keeping your marketing team in the loop on timing, if people know where and when components and final products are expected, they can help solve problems if you need to find a new plan.
If you’re trying to do more with less, Spearhead Global may be your solution to primary and secondary packaging sourcing. Our team works with you on developing and delivering packaging where it needs to be, with support from our in-house R&D, Quality, and Logistics teams. We turn multiple touchpoints into a single phone call, so you can focus on driving your business forward.
Want to see if Spearhead’s 100 Proof Method is right for your procurement needs? Just fill out the contact form below!
Connect with Us
"*" indicates required fields