We Are Running Short of Cartons

The supply chain challenges continue to grow. Now, we are facing a shortage of cardboard cartons.

I have just received notice from our main supplier that we are nearly out of our custom-specified cartons. Our supply agreement with them includes a commitment for 3 months’ supply at any given point. However, the cardboard manufacturer is so far behind that there are no reserves.

It seems that all alternative manufacturing avenues are in a similar situation. At this stage, we will not get any new stock until around February 8.

The reason we specify custom carton sizes is that they fit your order profiles and courier breakpoints. That ensures that you get the best value in carton utilisation and freight cost.

I have instructed all our teams to immediately re-use, re-use, re-use the cartons the goods arrive in. We have also secured a supply of some generic sizes, to keep disruption to a minimum.

The downside of this is that there may be instances where our packaging choices will not be the best for you. Please bear with us on this; we hope it is only temporary. Our teams will continue to try to pack your orders in the most efficient manner possible.

Please contact your warehouse manager or me at any time to discuss this issue.

Aaron Hobbs

aaron@dsl.co.nz

Preparing for Omicron

When Omicron enters the community, we may see large numbers of people labelled as close contacts being forced to stay home and isolate. This means we could see big workloads while being short-staffed and unable to work at full capacity.

We are hoping we don’t end up in this situation but, in case we do, we are setting up our customer service teams now with the training and equipment for remote work.

Our warehouse managers will be in touch with you, if and when the need arises, to discuss a plan to achieve the least possible disruption to your business and customers. This would be a big-picture plan rather than selecting specific orders for priority, as that could have the potential to further slow processing.

We suggest that you too start to prepare in case this situation arises and discuss with your customers the impact of possible future warehousing and courier delays.

Tegan Smith

tegan@dsl.co.nz