TellApe is specialized in digitizing the RTI (returnable transport items) registration and administration processes. TellApe’s philosophy is to be user-friendly and accessible to all types of users and companies. The app and portal have a broad character, making them applicable in various industries.
TellApe also has accessible pricing, so the product can be used by large multinationals as well as SMEs. Due to TellApe’s multifunctionality, the cost recovery time is different for every type of company. In the previous quarter we calculated the cost recovery time for a bakery. In this blog, we would like to take a vegetable grower as an example to calculate the cost recovery time.
Situation sketch vegetable grower
For this example, we use a vegetable grower with two locations. Both locations grow different vegetables and they use a different working process. All the purchasing, sales and RTI administration is handled at one office, with three full-time employees working in the administration department. The vegetable grower receives the cuttings and seedlings on cutting trays and self-designed seedling trolleys, where the cutting trays are easy to slide in. The products are then delivered on CC-carts to an umbrella organization, which handles the sales and distribution to the end customer.
For the CC-carts, the company has a contract with Container Centralen, the pool manager behind the CC trolleys. The annual contract ensures that the vegetable grower has 25,000 trolleys, at € 150,- per trolley, available during the year. Besides this carts, the vegetable grower owns 7,000 seedling trolleys € 100,- per trolley, and 300,000 cutting trays for € 8.95 each, to collect new vegetable cuttings. The total value of the RTI’s is € 4,575,300. In the total RTI’s, the grower keeps 10% extra RTI’s on retainer, to have some insurance when RTI’s are lost or broken.
Consequences of having insufficient RTI’s
When too little RTI’s are available – due to loss, theft or damages to the RTI’s and other things – the purchase, sale and transport process will run into various problems. If there are not enough seedling carts available for exanple, no new cutting plants can be collected and this will delay the cultivation of the plants. If a larger share of the pool is lost and the production therefore does not have enough transport items anymore, RTI’s have to be purchased and that is a major cost. In addition, the administration also has to deal with more discussions about where the transport items are located and when the products will be delivered or the plants can be collected. In short, companies incur extra costs when the RTI’s are misplaced.
RTI registration and administration
At TellApe we often deal with these kinds of cases. These losses occur in every industry and every type of business. Even if the RTI’s are registered, companies can still incur losses, for example if the registration is done on paper and not digitally.
The problem may be acknowledged, but it is considered too time-consuming to sit down and devise a step-by-step plan or solution. TellApe helps to set up a simple RTI registration and administration, so the savings follow automatically!
Based on industry experience, the use of TellApe can drastically reduce the amount of RTI’s lost. By better management of the process, companies can respond to damaged or unreturned crates on time. The RTI transactions are visible in real time in the portal and at the same time by the customer through a RTI-receipt. As a result, the administration employees cut the administration time in half and there is less discussion afterwards.
Clear-cut savings for this grower
- Direct costs of loss and damage are reduced by half, yealding between € 228,765 and € 320,271 per year.
- Indirect costs of the administration are reduced by half the time and the discussion afterwards is also reduced by half. This can save small businesses between five and ten hours per month. On an annual basis, this provides between 180 and 360 hours of administrative space. At an hourly rate of €25/hour, this yields between € 4500,- and € 9000,- annually.
- The risks of shortages in RTI’s are greatly reduced, so the total pool of RTI’s can be reduced by 5%. This delivers almost € 230,000 of extra working capital, which is no longer fixed in RTI’s.
The total amount saved is a minimum of € 233,265 and maximum of € 329,271 per year!
Cost recovery time for this grower
TellApe works with subscriptions and the price depends on the number of users. In this case, the grower will need 33 users, namely 3 administrators for the portal and 30 users who register RTI’s at the moment of transfer. As you can see in the diagram below, this company pays € 3049,20 for the first year. This means that with minimal cost savings, the grower has a cost recovery time of less than 1 month!
We’re happy to help you with your RTI challenge or calculate the cost recovery time for TellApe for your company. Want to learn more about TellApe?
