FAST RESPONSE TO AN ICE CREAM EMERGENCY

THE CHALLENGE

It was the busiest time of the year for one of the country's top producers of ice cream and ice cream novelty products (ice cream sandwiches, popsicles, fudgecicles, etc.). They were at peak production, building inventory to meet Spring and Summer demand.

Then disaster struck. An explosion and fire closed down their largest ice cream manufacturing plant. They didn't know when they could get it back online. A major interruption in the supply of their product to customers would be disastrous for their business. The company scrambled to quickly arrange for several manufacturers with excess capacity to produce their novelty products on a contract basis.

But then they faced another challenge. They had to immediately supply packaging and other materials to their contract manufacturers. Unless they could have new packaging produced and delivered in less than a week, they would be forced to short-ship or cancel shipments to customers.

That's when their primary packaging supplier for novelty products, Bell Incorporated, stepped in.

THE SOLUTION

As soon as they received the call about the emergency, the Bell scheduling, purchasing, shipping and manufacturing departments went into action.

In a matter of hours, the scheduling department adjusted the production schedule to delay work that did not need to ship immediately. All of the schedule time they freed-up was shifted to production of packaging for the novelty ice cream products.

At the same time, the purchasing department went to work to make sure raw materials were available for production. Fortunately, enough was paperboard was on-hand to start production almost immediately. But the purchasing department had to work with key suppliers to arrange rush shipments of ink and corrugated shippers. The shipping department also went to work to get trucks lined up to ship finished packaging to several different locations.

Finally, it was up to the manufacturing department to get the packaging produced in time. Within 24 hours of receiving the phone call from their customer, Bell had product on the line being produced. The manufacturing department made sure lines were operating at peak speeds and kept them running throughout the night.

Less than 48 hours after receiving the emergency phone call, Bell had finished packaging rolling off the production line and shipping to the three contract ice cream manufacturers. Bell continued operating its lines 24/7 until all quantity requirements were reached.

THE RESULTS

As a result of Bell Incorporated's responsiveness in dealing with this emergency, the ice cream manufacturer's customers did not experience a significant interruption in shipments. Bell's entrepreneurial organization was able to start shipping product in the time it would take many companies just to start meeting about the problem.

For more than four weeks, Bell continued to ship product to the customer and contract manufacturers. Finally, the ice cream plant came back online, and things returned to normal. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. The ice cream company's Spring and Summer business had been saved.