The assignment

The space against the back wall of the van can be used to store more products. The current space in which the beer crates are stored are designed specifically for the size of folding boxes, making some of the space wasted. However, the new name can be designed to fit beer crates specifically, making it much more efficient in its usage of space. This solution causes a dramatic increase in value that can be transported per delivery van.

Analysing the current situation

The solution

Identifying the opportunity

Result

Proof of concept

The home delivery of Heineken crates (through online purchase via Albert Heijn) is very unprofitable. Albert Heijn wants to be inclusive in its offering and Heineken wants as much turnover as possible, and so they want to keep selling the Heineken beer crates. At this rate though, it is so unprofitable that Albert Heijn will have to stop offering them.

To get a good understanding of the current situation we were allowed to visit the Home Shop Centre of Albert Heijn and thus get full access to all the ins and outs of the delivery system. Combining this with desk research we made a complete flowchart of every action involved, making it easy to identify possible points of interests and problems. Unfortunately, this information is confidential and can’t be shared.

In researching the delivery process, it became evident that everything is continuingly being optimized. One opportunity arose however, the home delivery vans have a big empty space in the middle: the aisle. For safety and practical reasons this can’t be filled up, but it could be more optimized.

As this is a short summary of the project, there are many aspects that I have not touched on. If you would like to know more, please feel free to ask. In the end, the project was very well received. Albert Heijn and Heineken considered it to be one of the three most promising projects and so they have bought my report. Below you can see the final poster and final video. They are both in Dutch.

This may sound like a simple solution, but it raises a lot of questions. Some safety issues and practical issues arise, which is why I have spent a lot of time during this project trying to test and prove that these issues are resolvable, and the solution is in fact beneficial. For example, I have made many calculations regarding the safety of transportation of the solution, and I have recreated the interior of the delivery van to test everything regarding practical issues.

The underlying reason for the huge losses is that the whole delivery system is tethered to the delivery of groceries in a so called ‘folding box’ (klapkrat). One of these folding boxes carries on average almost 3 times the value compared to the beer crates while occupying the same amount of space. In short, the volume to value ratio of the beer crate is much worse than that of other products that are being sold.

Identifying the problem