Lexmark International has been named as the winner of the Commonwealth Supply Chain Innovation Award, presented by the University of Kentucky’s Gatton College of Business and Economics at the college’s annual Supply Chain Forum.
The award recognizes operational excellence in supply chain management as demonstrated through a recently completed supply chain improvement project. Lexmark was honored for an “error-proofing” project completed in conjunction with logistics partner Kuehne + Nagel. The project was aimed at improving its custom mixed-pallet creation and shipping processes. As a result, order accuracy improved to best-in-class levels and both the number and cost of customer claims was reduced by more than 70 percent. The project also reduced labor costs and delivered a return on investment of 250 percent in the first year.
“This project is a great example of how Lexmark works alongside our customers every day to provide them the unique set of solutions and services that make their businesses more efficient,” said Marty Canning, Lexmark executive vice president and president of Imaging Solutions and Services, in a release. “This award and the results achieved represent a win for both of us.”
As the Commonwealth Supply Chain Innovation Award recipient, Lexmark also qualifies for future supply chain improvement project support from graduate students enrolled in Gatton’s one-year accelerated MBA program.
The judging panel for the award included practitioners, academics and consultants in the supply chain industry appointed by the advisory board for the college’s fifth annual Supply Chain Forum, held in late March in downtown Lexington. Roughly 200 corporate leaders, professors and students attended this year’s forum, which was themed “Digitization of Supply Chain."