After the products are purchased, Hershey’s then will deliver most in stock orders to the United States within one business day of receipt of the purchase (“Delivery Information”, 2015). Out of stock items will usually not ship for about ten business days, and backorders will be held until they can be shipped in full (“Delivery Information”, 2015). Hershey’s currently has seven manufacturing facilities with locations in Hershey, PA, Lancaster, PA, Hazleton, PA, Stuarts Draft, VA, Robinson, IL, and Guadalajara, Mexico, with a new location opening soon in West Hershey, PA (“Manufacturing Network and Factory Video Tour”, 2015). Also, they have several retail locations throughout the United States, and around the globe, which demonstrates the vast delivery and manufacturing network this company undertakes, and the reasoning it is so critical to have an efficient and cost effective distribution network.
The Hershey Company markets their products in about 60 countries worldwide, but the manufacturing plants and facilities are located in North America (“The Hershey Company – Form 10-K”, 2010). The reason for the location of these facilities has to do with many factors including economic characteristics, production processes, types of customers, and distribution methods, as even though Hershey’s is expanding globally these international operations comprise less than 10% of revenues, profits and assets (“The Hershey Company – Form 10-K”, 2010). The location of Hershey’s manufacturing facilities and distribution centers are strategically placed in order to ensure efficient and affective distribution that will help maintain sales, growth, and customer service (“The Hershey Company – Form 10-K”, 2010). The Hershey Company has five distribution centers, which handle more than two billion pounds of chocolate annually and ship over 100,000 refrigerated truckloads per year, and they use common carries to deliver these products from the distribution centers to the customers (“Sweet Success”, 2015) (“The Hershey Company – Form 10-K”, 2010).
In 2007, the Hershey Company launched Project Greenlight, which was a transportation initiative to reduce transportation costs and increase efficiency throughout the manufacturing and distribution network (“Sweet Success”, 2015). Project Greenlight had several objectives in order to improve on transportation costs including: consolidate inbound raw materials with outbound finished goods volume, improve capacity utilization, reduce empty miles and the carbon footprint, generate synergies for Hershey and trading partners (“Sweet Success”, 2015). In order to achieve this the company decided to partner with JDA, and they yielded the successful results of expanded continuous moves capabilities, significantly reduced their transportation costs, increased operational efficiencies, improved load-planning productivity, enhanced carrier asset utilization, achieved a 30 percent increase in key planning metrics, and a 400 percent improvement in solution runtime (“Hershey Kisses Transportation Management Inefficiencies Goodbye with JDA Services and Solutions”, 2015).
This map (https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=z7vPri-gAVIM.kZxsDLnwMJwI&usp=sharing) shows three layers of the distribution network for the Hershey Company, as it provides locations for the retail stores, manufacturing locations, and the distribution centers. It is simple to see how these locations are strategically placed to enhance delivery efficiency. There is a distribution center strategically placed near the manufacturing facilities and the retail stores, which makes for effective transportation usage. The global aspect of the business is growing, but due to the primary drivers of sales and consumption being located in the Americas the Hershey Company does not operate any manufacturing facility or distribution center outside of North America. If the company continues to grow globally, it is highly likely they would build an overseas facility in order to continually enhance the efficiency of the distribution network.
The Hershey Company takes its corporate and social responsibility seriously, as it continues to study and improve the most efficient ways to deliver its products between manufacturing facilities to distribution centers, and from distribution centers to consumers. All aspects of delivery from strategic locations, partners, and trying to reduce the transportation and carbon footprint effects of delivery have helped the Hershey Company make its delivery operations highly successful at a low cost to the consumer and our environment.