Supply Chain Management – Creative Brand Development

Supply Chain Management (SCM)

A lot of our clients come to us with an understanding that we are uniquely capable of manufacturing really great custom packaging for their unique brand. They have heard that we are reasonable, reliable, and responsive, which are all true, but what they “come to us for”, vs. what we actually “DO” boils down to world class supply chain management.

So okay, you come to us to simply acquire packaging, but what you’re really buying is a relatively complex chain of services that must all align for you to become a satisfied, long-standing client. Feel free to jump around this page, but please read on to better understand what you are really getting when you outsource your packaging to Creative Brand Development (CBD).

SCM Scenarios

Scenario #1: Raise your hand if you have used Alibaba to order packaging for your business or brand and learned either immediately, or somewhere during the transaction, that the end-to-end process is a lot more complicated than you first assumed. A solid 40% of our clients have either experienced major hurdles with attempting their own international supply chain management activities, or they have failed completely, taken significant losses, and/or had to go back to the starting line with another vendor.
Scenario #2: Raise your other hand if you have worked with another custom packaging vendor who at first seemed to know what they were doing, but various steps in the process were either awkward, challenging, or even disastrous. Challenges with pricing, timing, quality, delays, typos, sizing, coloration, print clarity, and/or alignment with a bigger set of sub-packaging. Another 35% of our clients came to us because their local vendor just didn’t have the supply chain logistics expertise needed to make them successful.

SCM International Problems.. Our Solutions

Whether you’re experienced with the potential pitfalls associated with international package manufacturing, or new to the process, the following series of supply chain management problems and solutions directly illustrate the value CBD brings to your business:

	Problem	Solution
The Manufacturer Identification Puzzle	There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of packaging manufacturers in the world. Cost, quality, ethics, and timeliness are all critical. How could you possibly know which ones are good and which ones are bad?	CBD has done the leg work. Depending on your packaging product needs, we already maintain 3-5 factory options for each packaging category, and we formally manage all of our manufactures to the highest of standards. Our manufacturers share in our clients best interest, and we act in concert to bring you the best possible end-products possible.
The Manufacturer vs. Broker SNAFU	Out in the wild, typically on Alibaba, there are literally thousands of brokers who portray themselves as manufacturers. Many do not care about quality, ethics, or timeliness the way you would expect, and this fact will hurt your business.	CBD is much, much more! We are laser-focused on the formal end-to-end factory management lifecycle. We do a lot well at CBD, but protecting your interests, eliminating the risk of shady middlemen, and ultimately overseeing our manufacturing factories is a major part of the benefits we provide to you.
Demand Management - Don’t forget to remember	As most end-product manufacturers and brands have experienced, last minute packaging orders are risky, more expensive, cause quality problems, and ultimately can slow your time to market. More importantly, projecting demand is always more difficult than simply a date on a calendar.	Based on the demand expectations you communicate, and in conjunction with our deep knowledge of international holidays, politics, and other bottlenecks, CBD tracks demand forecasts for you. If you tell us you typically order 4 months of packaging inventory at a time, we will call you before you call us. Reminders and technology are our friend, and we will help you each step of the way.
The Pricing Game	Without deep experience understanding all of the variations of itemized pricing that come into play (prep, plates, tariffs, shipping, complex printing, volume variation, etc) you will always be at a disadvantage. What you thought would cost $0.63 cents per unit turns into $1.26 per unit (double) and you are out of options because you need the packaging ASAP.	CBD has handled price management with our manufacturers literally thousands of times. You will benefit from our economies of scale, and it should be noted that we review our pricing expectations with our manufacturers quarterly. These cost management activities and reduced risk are always passed on to you. In fact, pricing is a key reason why we have never lost a client to a competing packaging vendor.
International Negotiation	Negotiating with different cultures in different countries is complex. Even when you feel like you found a win/win, or established a fantastic price or delivery schedule, there seems to be misunderstandings, and what may even feel like trickery, around every corner.	Negotiating with our manufacturing factories is not an issue because we handled the concept of negotiation years ago. Our manufacturing outputs are driven by teams who speak the same languages, share the same cultures, and are driven by transparency. We have a well-rounded understanding of the countries in which we do business, and we maintain very reciprocal relationships across our sales, logistics, and manufacturing Teams. As a result, negotiating becomes a non-factor.
Communication Barriers	Communication issues due to language and cultural differences can also lead to misunderstandings and delays in production. This often results in missed deadlines, added costs, and frustration. Even when English is used in written and verbal communication, meaning can be lost, and confirmation of mutual understanding is difficult.	CBD uses its experience and international communication capabilities across every phase of the supply chain lifecycle. Our manufacturing factories, shipping entities, and logistics experts maintain long standing relationships. In addition, our expectations are well understood and documented, and we ensure that cultural and language barriers are virtually eliminated across country lines.
Legal and Regulatory Compliance	Different countries, states, and municipalities have unique laws and regulations regarding packaging materials, labeling requirements, and environmental standards. Failure to comply with these regulations can result in fines, legal liabilities, and other penalties.	CBD is not a law firm, but our value-add as a second pair of experienced eyes is a huge benefit to you. We have already created packaging that align with hundreds of regulatory agencies, and we always work closely with you to quadruple check everything before going to print.
Supply Chain Disruptions	Manufacturing in foreign countries can lead to supply chain disruptions such as shipping delays, customs issues, quality issues, and other geopolitical risks. These disruptions can result in production delays, increased costs, and lost revenue. If any of these problems have happened to you, you know what we mean.	We at CBD keep our proverbial ear to the ground because supply chain disruptions are obviously a joint problem. COVID was a great example, but international politics, weather, and international holiday schedules are inevitable challenges as well. The great news is that we are always out ahead of it for all of our client’s benefits.
Quality Control	Without proper oversight and quality control measures, it can be difficult to ensure that the packaging meets your standards and specifications, every time. Ultimately, poor quality packaging can damage your brand reputation and lead to costly recalls.	We saved the best for last. Quality control is a major part of our offering to you. From our first interaction, all the way to the retail shelf, quality management is paramount. Raw materials, dimensions, weight, coloration, textures, content, safety, liability, temperature, shipping enclosures, and the list goes on. Quality management overarches every product you purchase from CBD, and we believe that we care more than every other packaging vendor out there.

The SCM Process at Creative Brand Development

As a unique brand or CPG manufacturer, your company can greatly benefit from outsourcing your packaging-related supply chain management work to a trusted company like Creative Brand Development. Reliability, responsiveness, and reasonably priced carries over to every step of your journey with us. Yes – you are ultimately buying CPG packaging, but you are really buying supply chain management services.

Creative Brand Development’s supply chain management services, which are included in the pricing of the packaging products you purchase, are directly focused on ensuring the smooth and efficient flow of your packaging from the raw materials entering the factory to your operation where the packaging will be filled, re-packaged, and moved to retail. These services include:

Supplier Identification and Qualification: Involves CBD working with our manufacturers to identify and select the specific factory that best meets your specific product, quality and pricing requirements. When necessary, this identification and qualification process also involves auditing new factories to ensure they meet your quality and ethical standards.

Procurement and Sourcing: Involves organizing and managing your orders, designs, payments, and logistics + ensuring that our manufacturing operations perform in a manner that meets your expectations.

Quality Assurance and Control: Involves inspecting and testing the manufacturing inputs and processes before, during, and after the build to ensure the end-product meets your specifications and quality standards. This also entails conducting inspections before and after shipping to the US, and as an added service can also include joint inspection side-by-side with your team, at your facility, upon request.

Logistics and Transportation: Involves managing and monitoring the movement of goods from our manufacturers to our warehouses, or directly to your facility. This includes coordinating with our shipping, customs, and logistics partners to ensure timely and cost-effective delivery.

Inventory Management: Involves assisting you in the management of your inventory levels to ensure you have enough stock to meet client demand without overstocking and tying up capital. In addition, we offer warehouse storage and logistic services to help offset any space issues you may have in your physical locations. Please inquire for more information

Supplier Identification and Qualification

Supplier identification and qualification is an important aspect of supply chain management, particularly when dealing with suppliers located in other countries like China, Vietnam, India, Mexico, etc. Some of the sub-services involved in supplier identification and qualification include:

Supplier Research: We have already completed hundreds of factory audits with our manufacturing operations, but this may also involve researching (i.e. pre-qualifying) other potential manufacturers to determine if they meet unique requirements you may have. This often involves researching via supplier directories, trade shows, and online marketplaces.
Supplier Pre-Qualification: This involves evaluating future manufacturing operations based on comprehensive criteria, such as manufacturing capabilities, references, quality standards, workflow, pricing, lead times, and capacity. This also included sending out pre-qualification questionnaires and conducting formal preliminary audits.
Supplier Audits: Involves visiting our current manufacturing operations, and occasionally their raw material suppliers, to periodically assess the manufacturing operation’s facilities and processes, as well as their compliance with local laws and regulations. These visits also allow for us to maintain face-to-face relationships with our manufacturing operations in the spirit of trust and mutual understanding.
Supplier Qualification: Includes selecting and approving raw materials suppliers based on their performance during pre-qualification and audit processes. This also involves the signing of supplier contracts and establishing service level agreements (SLAs).
Supplier Performance Management: This involves monitoring and managing the performance of our manufacturers, long term, to ensure they continue to meet our client’s requirements. This also involves conducting periodic audits or evaluations, as well as providing continuous feedback and support to improve our manufacturers performance.

By effectively managing supplier identification and qualification, CBD is able ensure that we continue to manage our manufacturer with reliable and high-quality analytics that will consistently meet your needs. This, in turn, can help to reduce risks, lower costs, and improve overall supply chain performance.

Procurement and Sourcing

Procurement and sourcing are critical activities in CBD’s supply chain management service model. These activities involve a multitude of components and processes such as; identifying and acquiring high quality raw material inputs, identifying and solidifying the optimal multi-step manufacturing life-cycle for each output, and orchestrating the transportation flows required to ensure perfection every time we work with you. When manufacturing custom packaging in foreign countries, moving that packaging across oceans, and eventually into your manufacturing work-flow, our primary procurement and sourcing sub-services inherently must include:

Cost gathering for complex orders: This involves gathering all of the intricate cost elements from an array of providers for; raw materials, bulk packaging supplies, specialized equipment preparation, shipping, trucking, tariffs, and any other esoteric inputs, activities, and/or outputs driving the requirements of your custom project. There are more details here than meet the eye, and we handle all of it for you.
Cost Analysis: This involves analyzing the costs from different suppliers and service providers to determine the most cost-effective and timely options for manufacturing and transporting your custom products. This analysis includes costs of materials, labor, overhead, transportation, tariffs, and other expenses. Again, to your ultimate benefit.
Negotiation: This involves negotiating with suppliers, service providers, and transporters to achieve the best possible prices, logistics, and terms for you. These complex negotiation activities include; all product inputs, unique manufacturing processes, bulk packaging (how your packaging is packaged), quality assurance activities, transportation costs and timing, and finally payment terms. Having created long term relationships on all of these fronts, and maintaining teams of resources access the globe, that is how we are able to supply you with optimal and consistent pricing every time we do business together.
Purchase Order (PO) and Statement of Work (SOW) Management: At the highest level this involves creating and managing several levels of purchase orders and SOWs for your custom products. At the next level, the required array of purchase orders and SOWs, which specify the quantity, quality, unique details, and transportation logistics and dates of the the inputs, sub-outputs, and end-products that make up your order are all managed and maintained by CBD so you don’t have to.
Contract Management: This involves creating and managing all of the supplier, service provider, and transportation contracts required to ensure that the detailed terms and conditions are realized. This includes such things as raw material inputs, processes, quality management/standards activities, delivery logistics, and pricing are all in order and agreed upon.

By effectively managing procurement and sourcing, CBD is able to ensure that your custom products are manufactured and delivered on time, and at the right price and quality. This in turn drives reduced costs, improved quality, and enhanced overall supply chain performance. This is one of our primary key value-adds to our relationship with you, and we are happy to do it.

Quality Assurance and Control

Leveraging ISO 9000-9001 standards, input, process, and output-focused quality assurance and control is an essential aspect of our supply chain management workflow when manufacturing custom products. The primary sub-services involved in quality assurance and control include:

Supplier Quality Management: CBD has developed a quality management system to ensure that our manufactures, suppliers, and service providers meet the required quality standards for your custom packaging purchases. Our process includes defining the quality criteria around every product manufactured and transported, establishing quality metrics, and conducting regular audits to ensure high quality and compliance.
Manufacturer Inspection and Testing: This involves conducting inspections and testing of your custom products at our manufacturing facilities to ensure that they meet your required quality standards. Depending on the end-product, this may involve visual inspections, dimensional inspections, and performance testing, among other types of testing.
Non-Conformance Management: This involves managing non-conformance issues, such as defects or deviations from the required quality standards. This may also involve conducting root cause analysis, developing corrective action plans, and monitoring the effectiveness of corrective actions.
Operations Performance Tracking: This involves tracking the performance of our supplier, manufacturing, and transportation operations in terms of product quality, transportation efficiency, and cost. This can be used to identify trends, areas for improvement, and to develop performance improvement plans.
Quality Improvement Collaboration: This involves collaborating with our suppliers, manufacturing operations, and transporters directly to improve their quality management systems and processes. This often involves broadly communicating detailed expectations, best practices, providing training, and offering technical support.

By effectively communicating and managing supplier, manufacturing, and transportation quality assurance and control, CBD can ensure that your custom products are manufactured and delivered to the required quality standards, which helps to reduce costs, improve client satisfaction, and enhance your overall supply chain performance experience.

Logistics and Transportation

Logistics and transportation are an obvious, but critical set of sub-services, which include their own unique workflow elements within CBD’s supply chain management offering. Some of the sub-services involved in logistics and transportation usually include all of the following:

Freight Forwarding: This involves arranging and coordinating the transportation of your custom products from our manufacturing facilities to your predetermined destination in the United States. This includes selecting the most cost-effective transportation mode, such as sea or air freight, and managing the logistics around shipping and customs clearance.
Customs Clearance: This involves managing the customs clearance process for your custom products, including preparing the necessary documentation and ensuring compliance with import regulations and requirements.
Warehousing and Distribution: This involves managing the storage, handling, and distribution of your custom products in the United States. This also involves selecting the most suitable warehouse location, optimizing inventory levels, and managing the order fulfillment process.
Transportation Management: This involves managing the transportation of the custom products from our manufacturers, to CBD warehouses, to your desired end location. This includes selecting the most cost-effective transportation mode, such as shipping, air, or ground or transportation, and managing the logistics around each step of the transportation workflow.
Order Tracking and Visibility: This involves providing real-time visibility into the status of your custom products throughout the supply chain, from our manufacturing facility to your end point location in the United States. This is used to improve your visibility into the process, and optimize supply chain performance.

By effectively managing logistics and transportation, CBD is able to ensure that your custom products are delivered on time, at the right cost, and with the required quality standards you expect. This ensures we meet your expectations, reduce costs, and enhance overall supply chain performance.

Inventory Management

Inventory management is a unique sub-service that CBD offers as part of our supply chain management workflow. By default, we work with you to tightly control:

Demand Planning: This involves forecasting demand for your custom products and planning inventory levels accordingly. This may include analyzing your historical inventory utilization data, market trends, and retail demand patterns to develop accurate forecasts.
Inventory Optimization: Involves optimizing inventory levels to minimize your inventory carrying costs while ensuring that sufficient inventory is available to meet demand. This involves implementing inventory replenishment strategies, such as just-in-time (JIT) inventory or safety stock.
Stock Monitoring: This involves monitoring inventory levels to ensure that they are within acceptable limits and that stock is not depleted or overstocked. This may also include implementing inventory control systems and conducting regular inventory audits.
Supply Chain Visibility: Involves providing real-time visibility into inventory levels throughout the supply chain, from our manufacturing facilities to your end destination in the United States. This service is typically leveraged with larger clients to optimize inventory levels and improve supply chain performance.
Supplier Collaboration: This involves collaborating with our suppliers, manufacturers, and transporters to optimize inventory levels and reduce lead times. This typically involves implementing vendor-managed inventory (VMI) programs or other inventory management strategies.

By effectively working with you to manage inventory levels, CBD is able to ensure that optimal quantities of custom packaging are available when you need them while minimizing inventory carrying costs. Ultimately, these services help to meet your expectations, save time, reduce costs, and enhance overall supply chain performance.