Logistionary: Milk run logistics

 

You might have heard the term “Milk Run” in a logistics context and wondered what milk has to do with Supply Chain.

To people´s surprise it has a lot to do! The Milk Run got its name from the milk industry practice wherein a single tanker goes to different dairy producers every day to collect milk and then deliver it to the milk processing firm.

In other words, Milk run in logistics is a process for inbound deliveries to warehouses or distribution centres, or within an internal Supply Chain, that involves a route with many stops.

To better explain this concept here is an example. Let’s say that many different growers in one region supply corn to a mill that makes flour. In a traditional Supply Chain, each farm could send a delivery truck with a load of grain to the mill each day. In milk run logistics, however, a truck would go from the mill to each of the farms and at each stop it will pick up corn from the different suppliers.

As we said, Milk runs can also be part of internal operations. Sometimes, they don’t even involve delivery trucks. Let’s take the example of a heavy equipment manufacturing facility. Several sections of the facility fabricate different parts of the machinery. Another team does the assembly. Someone from each fabrication department could deliver finished pieces to the assembly section. However, it’s following the Milk run approach, it will be probably more efficient to send one driver to the different sections to load and transport all the parts to the assembly area.

Milk runs are an excellent example of lean management principles applied to logistics and while it can certainly be a more efficient way to handle logistics they do take planning.