Supply Chain Strategy for Vitacost

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Supply Chain Strategy for Vitacost

Vitacost.com is an e-commerce company that sells vitamins, supplements, sports nutrition and organic health products.

Project Objectives/Challenges

Vitacost’s new west facility was not performing as expected.

Management wanted to audit operations and improve the west facility before designing and starting up an additional facility in the Midwest.

The company was transitioning to Sedlak from another consulting firm that designed and implemented the west facility.

What Sedlak Did

We performed an operations assessment of the west facility to understand performance challenges and develop improvement recommendations, and also reviewed the contract with the previous consulting firm to avoid any transition issues for the client.

Our analysis of expected and current operational volume metrics identified where gaps existed.

Design and implementation plans for a new Midwest facility were reviewed and upgraded.

Our team presented a go-forward plan that most effectively achieved the required operating performance at both locations, including support from appropriate vendors.

Results

We recommended that progress on the Midwest facility be halted until west facility reached operating effectiveness.

Our improvement plan for the west facility included recommendations to:

Stress test processes and systems
Develop specific skills and SOPs for management and associates
Project sales, inventory, and SKU growth over a five-year horizon
Build and execute a simulation model of the west facility

Results from the west facility improvements were incorporated into the plan for the Midwest facility.

Vitacost was provided with a project management plan for the Midwest facility that included a timeline, budget and vendor bids.

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