January 2025 | 5 min read

Achieving End-To-End Inventory Traceability and Accuracy With Intelligent Process Design and Technology

For any food distributor, inventory traceability is paramount to ensuring optimal service levels and safety in the event of a food recall. 

To achieve full inventory traceability, operators must adapt both their warehouse processes and technologies to support increased visibility and tracking for each item in their warehouse. Read below for more information on how LIDD achieved this with one of our clients, a major non-profit food bank in Chicago. 

General Context

The Client: Greater Chicago Food Depository (GCFD) is a Chicago-based non-profit that provides food, medical, and job programs for their local community. They operate inside a network of more than 700 food pantries and distribute more than 70 million pounds of non-perishable food each year.

GCFD was struggling with less-than-optimal service level for their clients. 

Manual processes and paper-based systems hindered their ability to maintain accurate inventory records, track product expiration dates, and efficiently manage warehouse tasks. This resulted in challenges such as inventory inaccuracies, difficulties in locating products, and potential food waste due to expiration.

Additionally, the lack of electronic task management made it difficult to optimize warehouse operations and ensure timely deliveries to partner agencies, with only 40% of customers receiving weekly shipments for fresh goods.

LIDD’s Mandate

To meet the challenge of ensuring timely and complete deliveries to partner agencies while maintaining product quality and freshness, LIDD prioritized enhancing labor efficiency, improving space utilization, and optimizing inventory management.

LIDD’s Targeted Improvements

1. Labor processes: LIDD examined GCFD’s existing labor processes to identify gaps in efficiency. With the collected data, LIDD re-engineered their processes to support more inventory turnaround and labor efficiency.
2. Warehouse infrastructure: Implementation of bin-level inventory visibility and expiration tracking for all items to focus on improved assortment management and product quality.
3. Inventory & Order Management: Implementation of new processes & technology to help GCFD keep track of their inventory to ensure fresher product and more timely deliveries. This includes a need for improved visibility on USDA products for compliance and freshness.
4. Product Allocation & Assortment: In addition to inventory management processes, LIDD also implemented a partner feedback initiative to more efficiently allocate products to customers.

LIDD Delivers

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