Case Studies

WOODLAND MANUFACTURING — FINAL ASSEMBLY / RETAIL SUPERCENTER DISTRIBUTION

Profile

Woodland Manufacturing is part of WMI Shops, a rapidly growing Internet retailing company. Among numerous other consumer products, Woodland Manufacturing creates wood letters for indoor and outdoor use, as well as vinyl letters, plastic letters, and metal letters. The company uses top-of-the-line, precision laser, router, and water jet cutting machines to deliver high-quality lettering. With a professional paint booth and powder coat oven for pristine color finishes, plus machines for graining and smoothing metal, Woodland is able to deliver lettering solutions for virtually any application.

Situation

Woodland Manufacturing had the opportunity to sell a line of their products at the world's largest retail superstore chain. However, this new distribution channel introduced volume requirements that took Woodland Manufacturing into uncharted territory. In fact, the first order was for one million retail display units (to be assembled from 6.1 million components)!

The project required vast amounts of space, personnel, and management bandwidth that Woodland simply didn't have. In addition to the physical challenges, there were technological hurdles to conquer as well, such as EDI. What's more, the timeline was tight: the 1 million display units had to be assembled and shipped just two weeks after manufacturing of the individual inventory components would be completed.

Solution

Woodland Manufacturing turned to Northwest Fulfillment. We rapidly deployed an efficient production line consisting of 76 employees and consuming 14,000 square feet of floor space. The individual display units were assembled and boxed, then labeled, palletized and prepped for shipping. Northwest Fulfillment embedded multiple layers of accuracy audits within the process, so we could send our client timely email updates to keep them apprised of progress. This provided Woodland Manufacturing with peace-of-mind, while reducing the amount of time they had to devote to project management.

Result

As promised, we finished the project 10 days after receiving the inventory components and seamlessly shipped 170 pallets to 42 different locations. The retail superstore chain received the display units on time and in full compliance with their specifications. And since Woodland Manufacturing was able to confidently offload the assembly and shipping aspects of the project to Northwest Fulfillment, they could devote the time and energy necessary for them to fulfill the EDI requirements of the retail superstore chain. The end result:

• WMI Shops grew their business, profitably opening up a new distribution channel without disrupting their core business operations
• WMI Shops was not bogged down in project management tasks, thanks to proactive updates from Northwest Fulfillment