Kimberly-Clark Corporation announced that it has been named the winner of the 2011 “Dick Clark Supply Chain Award” by Consumer Goods Technology (CGT) magazine.

The award – presented October 25 at the Consumer Goods Business and Technology Leadership Conference in Orlando – honors the consumer goods company that best demonstrates excellence in executing improvements in supply and demand planning, execution or network design.

Kimberly-Clark’s supply chain improvements are primarily the result of its shifting from traditional practices toward a demand-driven consumer value chain, where responsibilities are now shared between the company and its supply chain partners.

The results of the effort – which started as a “Lean” (cost savings) journey in late 2007 but subsequently evolved into a culture of continuous improvement, transformation and innovation – include halving internal cycle times, reducing the number of warehouses by almost 70 percent and reducing total supply chain costs, while increasing on-shelf availability.

“Kimberly-Clark is honored to receive the CGT Dick Clark Supply Chain Award in recognition of the outstanding innovative supply chain improvements our teams throughout Kimberly-Clark have executed over the past few years,” says Julia Smith, vice president of North Atlantic Consumer Products, Research & Engineering & Supply Chain Center of Excellence. “Supply chain performance is an important competitive advantage in the consumer goods sector today. The improvements we’ve made with our supply chain transformation allow us to operate more effectively and more efficiently, which enables us to continue to better serve our customers.”