Innocent Drinks, headquartered in London, is a leading producer of smoothies and healthy beverages, known for its focus on natural ingredients and sustainability. As part of its ambition to reduce environmental impact and support future growth, Innocent invested in the construction of “The Blender,” a state-of-the-art, carbon-neutral factory in Rotterdam. This facility enables Innocent to bring production closer to key markets, improve control over its supply chain, and significantly reduce emissions.
Challenge
During the ramp-up of a new green field factory in Rotterdam, “The Blender”, 4SupplyChain was engaged to support Innocent with the underlying supply planning processes. The main challenge was to reach the desired production volume while ensuring sufficient flexibility to deal with the realities of an immature operation. Typical symptoms during this phase included unstable production output, unexpected equipment downtime, and growing complexity as new SKUs were introduced. In addition, limited master data maturity, high variability in yields, and evolving cross-functional alignment created planning uncertainty.
Solution and deliverables
Over the course of 9 months, we supported the project up until the stabilization phase. By structuring the planning processes, stabilising data, and improving communication across teams, 4Supplychain helped Innocent scale performance, increase predictability, and ultimately reach the desired production volume with confidence.
- Provided interim leadership of supply planning during factory ramp-up
- Established clear roles, KPIs, and governance to drive performance
- Improved scheduling accuracy by refining batch sizes and changeovers
- Enhanced planning tool configuration and master data quality
- Proactively mitigated bottlenecks to increase throughput
- Built and trained a team of two production planners
- Reached target capacity and related OEE
