Packaging ReThink

Packaging redesign increases energy efficiency, operational efficiency and asset utilization with some degradation in customer usability. Stores offer change management to customers in order to ease the transition. Expect more of these changes as the new reality of energy and fuel costs drives industry actions. ...

... "The company estimates this kind of shipping has cut labor by half and water use by 60 to 70 percent. More gallons fit on a truck and in Sam's Club coolers, and no empty crates need to be picked up, reducing trips to each Sam's Club store to two a week, from five - a big fuel savings. " ...

Via NYTimes: Green Milk Jug

The Innovation Investment

Innovation is not free. Research projects need funding. And, it costs money for the salaries of innovation evangelists. Fresh from PDMA event, Jeffrey offers insights on the diminishing returns of operational efficiency and the need to innovate in order to grow. ...

... "Without defining an objective and consistently reinforcing the efforts of a group of people who support and enable an innovation process, most firms simply won't generate a lot of new ideas. " ...

Via Innovate on Purpose: Cheap Innovation

Operational Efficiency at Citigroup

Citigroup plans to eliminate thousands of positions in effort to streamline operations. Its list of information technology actions can have a significant impact. They seem late to the party with leveraging these efficient IT enablers - regionalized data centers, virtualization to increase capacity utilization, and a standard enterprise architecture. ...

... "Continue to rationalize operational spending on technology. Simplification and standardization of Citi's information technology platform will be critical to increase efficiency and drive lower costs as well as decrease time to market. Examples of this are: consolidation of data centers; improved capacity utilization of technical assets and optimizing global voice and data networks; standardizing how the company develops, deploys and runs applications; and maximizing value by limiting the number of software vendors to operate at scale. " ...

Via Citigroup: Citi Announces Actions to Streamline Organization, Reduce Expense Growth and Drive Future Expansion