Innovation, Supply Chain • 2 min reading time

Euro Pool System wins the Project of the Year at the Supply Chain Awards 2018

Dirk Vercammen published on 3 December 2018

Euro Pool System (EPS), market leader in the field of reusable packaging in the European fresh supply chain, was announced as winner of the ‘Project of the Year’ category at the Supply Chain Awards along with partners Delhaize and Aucxis.

The Supply Chain Awards 2018, held in Antwerp, Belgium on the 20th November, saw EPS and Delhaize presented with the prestigious accolade for their ‘Reverse Logistics Distribution Centre of the Future’ project. This award goes to a company that can demonstrate best practices in supply chain projects integrating aspects of procurement as well as warehousing, production and logistics. 

With their ‘Reverse Logistics Distribution Centre of the Future’ project, EPS optimises the use of returnable transport items within the total supply chain. 

Pieter Thijs, Logistics Manager at EPS says:

“This award is recognition of hard work, energy and vision to make such an exceptional project come together. We are proud of our processes; they benefit the entire supply chain and we are honoured to have been chosen as the winner of Project of the Year.”

Euro Pool System has become the standard in the European chain for fresh and packaged food with its reusable and foldable trays. The award-winning project pools or rents reusable trays to customers across Europe.  The project manages the entire process from start to finish and all the way back again. They provide the pooling of the trays and returnable transport items, track and trace every tray and offer a reverse logistics service to bring the items back from the shops into service centres for maintenance and re-supply; all done with extreme efficiency. 

The project successfully:

  • Minimises workload at the retailer.  Removes the need to sort trays, or count at the shops. 
  • Provides efficient data exchanges (EDI) between all the supply chain partners.  Achieved via individual tray barcode and/or RFID tags, unique barcodes per load and RFID tags on the truck trailers.
  • Optimises efficiency via yard management automation as well as intelligent, fully automated people steering.
  • Provides accurate counting and identification of returned items, creating 100% transparency at all points in the supply chain.
  • Improves efficiency at the service centres with automatic tray carriers, mixed tray washing , quality control, label removal and sorting. 
  • Provides full tracing and tracking for all returnable transport items. 
  • Reduces CO2 emissions and water usage.
     

The panel of judges took all of this into account when selecting a winner and with five finalists (Biocartis, Euro Pool System/Delhaize, ODTH, Snack Food Poco Loco/Loglfow and Wase werkplaats/MURIS) in the Project of the Year category, it’s an illustrious win for EPS.

As a winner, the company can now enter and compete in the European Award for Logistics Excellence organised by the European Logistics Association.

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Dirk Vercammen

Regional Director

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