The Homa Files

Excerpted from Fortune, “How Sam’s Club sees the future”, October 16, 2008

Of all the things you might think you could innovate on, the milk jug might not be at the top of your list. But, it is at the top of the Sam’s Club list.

Traditional milk jugs don’t stack, and they were coming in (to Sam’s) on metal carts that were being shipped back to the dairy, cleaned, and then sent back to the stores and clubs, and recycled, which created a lot of energy drain.

Sam’s developed a new milk jug that is stackable, so Sam’s can get 400 additional jugs in a trailer,  eliminating 11,000 delivery trips to the stores.  And,  there are no carts to send back to the dairy.

Trucks are  loaded in a way that reduces bacteria, which gives additional 6 days shelf life.

So, the new package provides a better-quality product, and costs a dime to 20 cents less.

The one big challenge has been that it’s different to pour. If you tip it and put it into the glass, it works fine, but if you pick it up and pour it like the old jug, you’ll miss. Which has some people crying over spilled milk.

Full article:
http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/15/news/companies/Wal-Marts_rising_star_colvin.fortune/index.htm

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