A store friendly sypply chain for Boots Plc
Boots Plc is the UK’s largest health and beauty retailer, with over 1400 stores carrying everything from prescription drugs and beauty products to small appliances, electronics, cookware, household items, stationery, toys and food. Boots stores vary in size from village chemist’s shops to extensive retail space in large shopping centres. This diversity in both the range of products handled and the size and type of retail space presents particular challenges to the supply chain.
Boots requirements
In the journey from a supplier’s central warehouse to the store shelf, Boots Plc used a variety of different packaging and transport solutions, each adapted to one phase of the supply chain but not suitable for the next. The customer wanted a “store friendly supply chain” that would be compatible with all phases of transportation, storage and shelf display, avoiding wasted space within vehicles and increasing efficiency during unloading of wares and restocking of store shelves. 
Schoeller Arca Systems’ solution
Schoeller Arca Systems designed a combination of stackable, foldable containers in different sizes, to be used with a dolly at every stage of transportation from the warehouse to the store shelf. The key building blocks of the solution are 600 x 400 and 300 x 400 folding containers of the same height (235 mm) and an 800 x 600 dolly. With built-in straps for load security, the complete unit ensured that vehicle space
utilization was optimized.
Benefits of the solution
Selected to increase efficiency in the supply chain, Schoeller Arca Systems products proved to have added benefits for Boots Plc. The use of plastic containers reduces the noise of loading and unloading operations to the retail outlet, improving working conditions for staff and extending the hours during which deliveries can take place, even in residential areas. The elimination of metal cages also means a reduction in injuries, while the container sizes, adapted to their contents, ensure that employees don’t lift excessive weight. The folded, empty containers due for return to the warehouse can’t accumulate rain or litter, while saving space at the back of the store.
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