Environmental sustainability in distribution center facilities is a growing trend, according to Bob Shaunnessey, executive director of the Warehousing Education and Research Council, which recently released its 2007 Facilities Trends Report.
In the spirit of Earth Day -Tuesday, April 22 -some of the changes distribution and manufacturing companies are making: recycling more materials, switching out bathroom facilities to use less water per flush, using less packaging to ship their products and asking suppliers to use less packaging so there is less waste. They are putting in more energy-efficient lighting, and installing motion sensors so that when no one is in a particular area, the lights stay off.
I think ‘the right thing to do’ set the stage for the …
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HD Supply, Atlanta, GA, has launched its two new proprietary brands, Seasons and Brigade. The Seasons brand will be carried on products such as kitchen and bath fixtures and ceiling fans, ultimately used by consumers, while Brigade will be carried on heavy duty products, such as tools and hardware, ultimately used by professional contractors and trades people on the job.
Seasons branded products are positioned in the better” quality tier; products with elevated features and functionality in the “best” quality tier carry the Seasons Gold brand.
Brigade is used with better quality professional-grade products, and Brigade 5-Star is reserved for best quality products. Currently, Seasons and Brigade branded products are primarily being sold through HD Supply’s …
James T. Ryan, Grainger’s president, will add the title of CEO effective June 1, 2008. He will succeed Richard L. Keyser, who will remain with the Chicago, IL-based facilities maintenance distributor as chairman of the board.
Ryan was named Chief Operating Officer and appointed to the Board of Directors in February 2007. He became president of Grainger in 2006.
Ryan has served Grainger in increasingly responsible roles in virtually every part of the company since joining the company in 1980. He graduated from Miami University, Oxford, OH, in 1980 with a Bachelor of Science degree in business. He also earned a master’s degree in business administration with distinction from DePaul University in Chicago.
Grainger, with 2007 sales of $6.4 billion, is a …
The Home Depot, Atlanta, GA, which sold off its wholesale operations mid-2007 but continues to target professionals with its Own the Pro initiative, needed a more effective way to manage inventory for its lower-volume stores and seasonal and promotional products.
The existing Home Depot supply chain worked great for high-volume stores, which had no trouble making frequent orders to vendors for direct store delivery to allow them good in-stocks and inventory turnover,”Mark Holifield, Home Depot’s Senior Vice President-Supply Chain, told analysts in HD’s recent annual earnings results call with analysts.
“But in lower-volume stores, without an effective central distribution network, our store associates are forced every day to make the tough choice of being …
In the movie Groundhog Day, the main character wakes up each morning doomed to repeat the exact same day, until he realizes he can change his life and do better.
That movie might be a useful management tool as we move through the current downturn in the economic cycle. As noted in an upcoming interview in MDM, Al Bates has been conducting financial performance surveys of distributors for nearly three decades. He has a wealth of data on how distributors have done across multiple business cycles. So is this cycle any different? We are going to come out of this recession the same way we came out of 2001-02, he said. Distributors will give up the same ROA they have in every cycle, then rebuild sales, add too many people and overhead, then cut when the next downturn …
Over the past six years, Dayton, OH-based WinWholesale Inc. has embarked on a project to optimize its distribution network. The diversified national distributor, with $2.6 billion in sales for the fiscal year ended Jan. 31, 2007, has five distribution centers across the country: Phoenix, AZ; Denver, CO; Dayton, OH; North Haven, CT; and Richmond, VA.
The company has seen incredible growth over the past several years, benefiting from the housing boom. In addition, WinWholesale acquired Noland Company in 2005.
The company has 462 local Win companies, and 105 Noland branches, in 44 states. WinWholesale distributes plumbing and water-heating supplies, industrial PVF, electrical equipment, electronics, industrial and commercial fastening hardware, waterworks …
Building Materials Holding Corp., San Francisco, CA, has named Stanley Wilson its new president and Chief Operating Officer. BMHC is a provider of building materials and construction services to builders and contractors.
Wilson, 63, was elected president and CEO of BMC West in 2004 and was a Senior Vice President in …
When one of my mentors in this industry emailed in December to say he just left his office for the last time at the company he had been with for 48 years, it struck me how much impact he has had on so many people in this industry.
I first met Roy Otto, former owner of Machine Tool Supply in Eagan, MN, 25 years ago. He has been a teacher to many people in this industry and beyond. He has been generous in sharing his knowledge and enthusiasm for the industry, and has been a strong role model for hundreds of employees, peers, suppliers and competitors.
Roy started in the warehouse of in 1959, worked hard and moved into inside and outside sales. It was natural that he ended up with an equity stake. Roy built a well-planned exit strategy, sold his business a few years …
When one of my mentors in this industry emailed me in December to let me know that he had just left his office for the last time at the company he had been with for 48 years, it struck me how much impact he has had on so many people in this industry. Those who know him will appreciate that he included the exact minute of his departure, not because he couldn’t wait to bust out, but because of the well-known attention to detail he brought to running and growing his business over several decades.
I first met Roy Otto, former owner of Machine Tool Supply in Eagan, MN, about 25 years ago, when he was the chair of a publications committee for the state’s tooling and machining association. He has been a teacher without seeming like one to many people in this industry and beyond. He …
ABC Supply Co. Inc., Beloit, WI, has appointed David A. Luck as CEO. He also will continue in his current role of company president.
Luck joined ABC Supply as president and COO in July 1998.
Ken Hendricks, founder of the national building materials distributor, served as CEO until his death in late December 2007.
ABC Supply is a $3 billion wholesale distributor of roofing in the U.S. and a distributor of siding, windows and other select exterior building products. The company operates nearly 380 branches in 46 states and the District of Columbia. …
It's not easy to grasp the idea of a retirement date, says Evergreen Consulting's Brent Grover in the MDM Audio Conference, Succession Planning: Leaving Your Business Better."This is very long-range planning,"he says.
Grover went through the same thing in 1982. At that time, he was working in the family's distribution business founded by his grandfather. The second generation needed to set a retirement date.
Grover compared the situation to a Patek Philippe watch ad: "Their advertisement says that you never actually own one, you merely look after it for the next generation."
Some companies operate that way, and "live"to pass the company on to the next generation. "I was fortunate that I came from a family that did plan,"Grover says.
Industrial distributor Lewis-Goetz and Company, Inc., Pittsburgh, PA, has named Jeffrey T. Crane as president and CEO. Crane has served as the company’s president since May 2006.
David R. Goetz, Sr., formerly chairman and CEO, will remain as chairman of the company. Goetz, who turns 63 this month, will continue to drive the organization’s acquisition activities and remain active with major customers and suppliers.
Lewis-Goetz is a distributor of industrial rubber products, including industrial, hydraulic and metal hose; conveyor belts; gaskets and seals; and related accessories and services. Lewis-Goetz operates from 60 locations throughout the U.S. and …
A distribution branch manager in many cases has worked his way through the ranks, but may not have had formal management training. In fact, the average manager may be so busy with his daily work that there hasn't been time to spend on higher-level localized market research and business planning. Wholesaler-distributors need to shift how they view the role of their branch managers by giving them the power to dig deeper into their markets.
Vancouver, BC-based heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration distributor Independent Supply Company went from start-up in 2000 to eight branches in Ontario and Western Canada.
In 2006, Independent Supply decided that to maintain that fast growth, it needed to shift how it viewed the job of branch …
Employees who care about a customer? Valuable. Employees who take ownership of making customers happy and initiative in making your company more profitable? Priceless and perhaps increasingly extinct.
Distributors aren’t ignoring the issue of human resource development. In fact, the University of Industrial Distribution, an annual program that a few years ago went begging for students at its annual one-week session, has been quickly selling out about 500 seats the past two years. But it will take a lot more than annual off-site training to keep your company competitive and growing in turbulent economies. A team of motivated, resourceful and creative problem solvers can make the difference in a company’s performance.
People with great skills are in short supply; …
U.S. companies doing business overseas. But not all manufacturers and distributors are benefiting. For those distributors who import from the euro-zone, for example, costs have suddenly spiked, forcing them to reexamine the way they define value in this marketplace. This article examines the impact of the dollar decline on three groups:
- U.S. importers,
- manufacturers who export to the European Union, and
- Canadian distributors who buy from U.S.-based manufacturers.
Recently, Equipment Controls Co., Norcross, GA, has started to factor the value of the U.S. dollar into its business planning. The gas measurement and control equipment …
Finding that a supervisor’s comments about an employee’s age were admissible circumstantial evidence, and that his employer’s reduction in force plan was not a plan” at all, an appeals court has reinstated the claim of a 57-year-old employee, who had been let go in a Reduction in Force (RIF) that affected over 90 employees.  ;
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Richard Blair had worked as a sales engineer since 1986 for Henry Filters Inc., a manufacturer of industrial filtration systems. In 2001 the new owner of Henry Filters, Durr Ecoclean, decided for business reasons to consolidate the sales force of Henry Filters with two other companies it owned, resulting in a cut back among the sales staff. Blair was one of the employees let go, and believed it was because of his age.
To …
News that CompUSA will shut its remaining 100 stores and sell off its assets offers some insight for distributors and manufacturers feeling the pressures of consolidation. The downturn of the electronics retailer was not for lack of investment, but likely poor positioning.
Investing in the business in the late 1990s, Mexican telecom and retail store magnate Carlos Slim (now the richest man in the world) took CompUSA private, and the company grew its consumer electronics business through acquisition, including The Good Guys, a California chain.
The Wall Street Journal estimates annual sales last year at $4 billion, but likely to come in at $1.5 billion this year. Early in 2007, it said it would close 126 stores, more than half of its total then.
Anyone who …
Layoffs and other cost-cutting measures in building materials have begun in earnest, with several distributors and retailers announcing workforce reductions” in the past week.
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The Home Depot, Atlanta, GA, will cut upwards of 950 jobs, many from its three call-center operations that work with customers to install doors and other products. An HD spokesman told Reuters that the closings were not solely due to a down housing market. The retailer wants to give customers a local contact for installation help rather than send them to a call center. Still, HD is hurting, posting a 27% drop in profit in the past quarter.
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UK-based Wolseley said it would cut its workforce in North America by at least 1,300 more this year, mostly in its Stock Building Supply subsidiary. …
The economy and the decline of the dollar top the concerns of many (though not all) distributors and manufacturers, according to the latest MDM survey. Here are the key issues that surfaced in the November poll.
As in the past few years, distributors are paying close attention to consolidation trends among suppliers, competitors, end-users and ERP providers, materials costs, sales force development, supplier relationships, recruiting and retaining talent and controlling benefits costs. Private label, foreign competition and global sourcing have also moved front and center.
We also asked consultants in wholesale distribution to share what they see developing. Here are starting points to help plan for 2008.
1. Plan for …
Many sources are predicting a more significant slowdown in 2008 than previously thought, as several articles in this issue address. Perhaps the only predictable certainty for 2008 is that the attention deficit disorder the mainstream media suffers from will be epidemic. Not only is it an election year, but the credit crunch and residential construction downturn will give most reporters severe whiplash. It will be even harder to get an accurate read on the real shifts taking place in the economy.
We don’t predict the future, but we do try to offer observations and insight from our coverage of diverse distribution sectors inNorth America and abroad so our readers can plan and react quickly. Our lead …
