Current Packaging thinks outside the box to knock down rental costs

Current Packaging, based at Solihull, has saved Jaguar Land Rover more than £250,000 by returning misused leased packaging in the last year. But the team needs your help.

Leased Packaging Specialists – Paul Hopgood, Haritha Puthanveedu, and team leader Liam Plunkett, are looking to reduce the multi-million pound rental contract by finding and returning misused boxes removed from the supply chain.

Covering all the UK manufacturing and satellite sites, they are tasked with ensuring that rented containers from packaging providers – GEFCO and CHEP – remain in the pool of containers used to transport parts from Jaguar Land Rover’s many suppliers to its plants on a daily basis.

These containers are brought in and delivered track side, where colleagues pick and fit the parts. It is after this process when the containers are being misused instead of returned. This is causing a problem as Leased Packaging Engineer Paul explains.

“It has been an ongoing issue for years. The problem we have is that very few people understand that these containers are rented and not owned by Jaguar Land Rover. We pay a daily rental charge for every box within our supply chain, and that soon mounts up if those boxes are not returned to the suppliers.”

The boxes are misused innocently enough with the team highlighting the more innovative uses. These include a pair being welded together to store full exhaust systems, others used as outdoor seating and covered in foam for added comfort, as well as being used to transport kits to test facilities around the world.

Contracts and Containers Manager Liam says that 99 percent of the time the boxes stay in the loop continuously ferrying parts from suppliers to the manufacturing plants. With more than 18 million individual box movements into plants every year – any boxes out of the supply chain quickly adds up. So far this year the team has managed to locate and return more than 2,800 misused boxes.

“One box out of the loop for 12 months costs the business £365 per year,” says Liam. 

“We want people to understand these containers are not owned by Jaguar Land Rover, and that we can often provide an alternative solution. Work with us and we will continue to save Jaguar Land Rover substantial amounts of money together.”

Project Domino is tasked with finding and returning as many boxes back into the loop, as well as educating colleagues about the associated costs with these boxes. 

But they need your help to find and locate them across every site, and in return they will use their expertise to find alternative storage solutions.

Liam adds: “It is a case of sharing the message – some colleagues are doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. We need you to be on the alert so that between us we can come up with a solution.”

The team has already made huge strides in finding alternative storage solutions for colleagues across the business. Paul explains that as part of Project Domino they have been able to repatriate obsolete Jaguar boxes ready for use, adding:

“We located the boxes at another site which we identified could be used as an alternative packaging solution.”

Haritha said: “I noticed all the tugs at Solihull were using a rented box to store water bottles and scanners in. We did a project with the Team Leaders to get all the drivers to swap the boxes and in the process saved the business more than £10,000.

Paul adds: “Our role is to support our colleagues in manufacturing and engineering. The ideal situation is to walk into the office and find my inbox full of emails from people asking for help with their storage solutions.”

To report a misused GEFCO or CHEP container, or to find out about alternative storage solutions email Paul Hopgood (phopgood) or Haritha Puthanveedu (hputhan3).

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