Damage reduction and cost avoidance

Damage reduction offers a key route to reducing shrinkage and alleviating costs associated with the process of supply. Both consumer products (fast and slow moving goods) and machinery/equipment products are vulnerable to damage.

In 2004, a Pira Strategic Futures report examined various studies on shrinkage in the European FMCG supply chain and estimated the cost of damage in Europe as between €2bn to €3bn per annum.

For consumer goods, damage equates to reduced availability which equates to loss of sales. The impact on an individual consumer may be only nominal, but the total result of damage to a brand owner or retailer is significant.

Pira regularly undertakes projects supporting clients to reduce damage and this commonly involves a mix of field and lab based activity. Field based work involves observation of real life events, damage quantification and process mapping. This feeds laboratory activity by supporting test selection and analysis. Laboratory analysis allows identification of a range of damage mechanisms, including:

• Breakage, failure
• Fatigue
• Accidental actuation
• Stress cracking
• Leakage
• Instability (pallet)
• Abrasion/print scuff, decoration damage

Once a specific issue has been identified and resolved, many clients use Pira to set up performance and specification improvement processes to ensure future fitness - often this involves development of a bespoke laboratory test method and ongoing validation of packed product in Pira's laboratory.