Why did the chicken cross the road? - Well let's ask KFC

 

Hello Ladies & Gentlemen!

This week we are going to have a look at one of the biggest food retail chain organization and their supply chain disaster. To answer the question "Why did the chicken cross the road? It's because KFC couldn't get it to their store. This was a famous joke at the beginning of the year 2018, as KFC ran into several logistics problems. 

So what happened exactly? In the month of February 2018, KFC switched their logistics from Bidvest to DHL, without conducting any trial runs. On Valentine's day, there were two collisions on the M6 motorway which caused the death of one person and leaving a couple of others injured. The junctions at where it happened were near to the DHL warehouse. There were traffic blocks for several hours, making those roads completely inaccessible. A couple of trucks that were stuck in the traffic includes trucks from the KFC warehouse. That was a single warehouse located in the golden rectangle. The golden rectangle is a location such that, if you have a facility there, you can transport any goods across the UK in one night. But this didn't turn out too well for KFC as the roads leading to it were blocked for several hours.

This caused KFC to shut down various outlets of its as they were running out of chicken. Also, some of the stats say about two-thirds of their outlets were closed due to a shortage of chicken. While analyzing where they went wrong, they realized the storm caught up at the wrong time. This was the time where they were handing over from one logistics service to another and before even it became complete, they were caught in the crisis. Some of the mistakes made by KFC are lack of experience in logistics, no plan A, B, or C, improper cost-cutting, no contingency planning, lack of communication & safety.

So what they should have done or should do? Well for starters, make a proper plan such that it involves all the possible outcomes which would help them to be ready for however worst the outcome is. Looking out for a well-experienced outsourcing partner in your area of expertise. It's not important that they are good at overall experience but what needs to be known is, does my vendor have experience in treating products very similar to mine. The 1st and foremost thing is to do a test run before starting anything new, which KFC forgot to do it. Last but not least, never put all eggs in one basket, DHL used only a single warehouse thinking that would save a lot of costs but that cost them a fortune. 

These are not only lessons for them but for everyone out there, as situations are unpredictable, it's always best to be prepared for the worst. I will end my final words by quoting Virat Kohli's statement to a fan "Don't look for success, look for failures because the latter teaches you more".

Adios, Amigo!

-Varadharaju R