Preventive actions to eliminate supply chain losses in Kraft Heinz Company

Abstract: The purpose of the presented project is to eliminate the supply chain losses in Kraft Heinz Company through preventive actions. The two points that the current thesis will focus on are the prevention of excess production and the elimination of MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity) issues that contribute to supply chain losses. High MOQ is one of the main root causes of excess production. Firstly, a literature review will be made. The approach of creating the literature framework is to start from a general description of supply chain activities in FMCG (Fast-moving Consumer Goods) companies, then to focus on more specific topic which is the excess stock and the inventory management and finally, to end up in the food waste hierarchy analysis that scientific articles frame. Food waste for a FMCG company is similar to supply chain losses, thus it is critical to provide a state-of-art literature in order to have a better understanding. Furthermore, the KHC (Kraft Heinz Company) background will be described, as the history of KHC and the current portfolio in order to understand the size of the company and the needs of such a huge company and the complexities. Additionally, the supply chain function in KHC will be described in details in order to understand the reason of this thesis existence, to identify the gaps in this process and the improvements should be made. Finally, the improvements made through this project will be presented, as well as, the processes and the methods that are developed and standardized. The analysis of the prevention of excess production process, as well as, the improvements have been made in this process will be explained. The routines and the new approaches will be described. The second part of the improvements section is concerned the development and the standardization of the MOQ Flexibility project. The calculations, the process, the challenges and the involved stakeholders will be part of this thesis.