A decade ago, when contract packaging and manufacturing company MSI Express first teamed up with software developer Nulogy, environmental reporting wasn’t exactly a top-of-mind concern. At the time, the company, which serves Fortune 500 food and beverage companies, was struggling with a number of basic operational challenges, like inefficiencies resulting from manual process tracking and a lack of inventory visibility. To put things in perspective, it was still managing its two sites through a combination of pen and paper-based processes, Excel, and a homegrown Access database.
That all changed after the company brought in Nulogy in 2014. Nulogy, which specializes in supply chain collaboration and operational solutions, runs a cloud-based multi-enterprise platform that enables manufacturers to synchronize their operations with those of their external supply chain partners.
Once MSI implemented Nulogy’s system, it was able to tighten up its operations and performance. Today, it can track a wide array of performance metrics across its entire operation, including profitability, receipt-to-consumption time, receipt-to-ship time, and day’s sales outstanding. On top of that, it has seen big improvements in performance, including the number of orders shipped on-time, in full. In the years since, the company has leveraged Nulogy to help scale up operations and bring on additional facilities. Today, it operates 15 sites across six states.
GOING TO THE NEXT LEVEL
But it turned out that wasn’t all Nulogy could do.
In recent years, many large CPG (consumer packaged goods) brands, including MSI Express’s customers, have committed to sustainability targets that involve the reduction of Scope 3 emissions—an endeavor that extends to their suppliers and service providers. To help its customers reach these targets, MSI expanded its own mission to include investing in initiatives to drive down its carbon and waste footprint.
But in order to meet its sustainability commitments, it would need further digital support.
Once again, MSI turned to Nulogy, which stepped in and helped implement waste-reduction capabilities on its existing platform. MSI now uses Nulogy for material tracking in order to drive out operational waste.
As for the results, the numbers speak for themselves. In 2022 alone, “9,000 tons [of waste] were addressed via recycling and waste-reduction methods,” Nulogy said in a case study published on its website. It further noted that its client had achieved similar results in 2021, eliminating an additional 8,000 tons of waste.
“Bringing Nulogy to the table [allowed] us to really identify our biggest opportunities around waste in the entire supply chain and present that to our vendors and our customers so we can work together to reduce that waste,” said David Freed, chief information officer at MSI Express, in the case study. “It’s where we’re driving a lot of our pathways to net-zero and pathways to zero.”
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