The purpose of the supply chain is to improve the overall performance of a business. Whether your organization operates nationally or globally, competition is always increasing, and offering products at the lowest possible cost with the best possible customer service is one way to secure market share. NHS Supply Chain provides patient-focused healthcare products and supply chain services to the UK National Health Service (NHS). The headline target is to save the NHS more than £1 billion across supply chains by 2016. The organization has already saved over £200 million since 2006. The NHS supply chain's end-to-end service includes procurement, logistics, e-commerce and customer and supplier support. With over two thousand employees, they manage the procurement and delivery of over six hundred thousand products ranging from bandages to food cans, medical vests to implants and even diagnostic equipment such as MRI scanners. The supply chain was designed by the NHS Logistics Authority and parts of the National Health Service Procurement and Supply Agency (PASA). They are operated by DHL (DHL Supply Chain Limited) on behalf of the NHS Business Authority. The recent example of NHS supply chain was the collaboration of “Daniels Healthcare” with NHS. These companies had the goal of finding a solution for a more efficient way of packaging. The Challenge With polypropylene increases of up to 60%, Daniels Healthcare, a small and medium-sized enterprise (SME), which supplies clinical waste containers to the healthcare sector, has worked in partnership with NHS Supply Chain to remove costs from the supply chain for avoid significant price increases for the NHS.Objectives• Save costs in the supply chain to offset increases in polypropylene costs.• Save product miles through reduced deliveries to...half paper......maintain a favor of the 11.5l and 22l containers. Packaging solutions for these products delivered faster savings with less impact on both organizations. This allowed everyone involved to demonstrate a faster return on investment, as well as providing valuable insights for more challenging future projects. After the proposal was approved, Daniels Healthcare began reducing existing inventory, having changed packaging specifications and production plans. Meanwhile NHS Supply Chain has updated its systems (allowing for a new quantity per pallet and amended product description) and prepared customer communication to be distributed by its customer service team. LiveCustomers began receiving bulk containers with roll cage deliveries from 1 October 2012. Customer Services were notified to ensure any requests were dealt with quickly and effectively.