Pork Processor Brings Home the Bacon
By Sandra Beckwith
This post originally appeared on Inbound Logistics
Like so many other companies its size, Smithfield Foods Inc., the world's largest pork processor and hog producer, grew through acquisitions—more than 40 of them since the first in 1981. Over time, the company consolidated those businesses into three independent operating companies (IOCs), each maintaining its own supply chain.
When an on-time delivery problem arose in 2015, the supply chain team investigating its cause experienced something else that's also common in organizations of Smithfield Foods' size and structure: Identifying the cause of one issue leads to another, and another, and yet another.
"Seemingly disconnected transactions will cause more issues if you don't solve the root problem," says Dennis Organ, the company's senior vice president of supply chain.
Smithfield's solution meant combining its three supply chains into one, which dovetailed nicely with its "One Smithfield" initiative to unify the three companies and their brands under one corporate umbrella. The process would not only help get to the root cause of problems, it would also improve operating efficiency and reduce costs while contributing to the organization's aggressive sustainability goals.
