The delivery time delay also required Hopkins to rework the company's inventory levels. "We used to store about one day's worth of safety stock, but now we keep about 3.5 days of inventory on hand," he reports.
Hopkins makes sure the rail cars are packed for maximum efficiency—the company uses 100 percent of the space inside the rail cars on every shipment. Because they are so well packed, the shipments require significant time to unload.
"We receive two cars each day, and it takes about eight hours to unload them," Hopkins says. "We palletize the product as it comes off the rail cars and move the pallets into a freezer unit. Then we prepare truckload shipments to the stores."