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 Ozburn - Hessey is a large—in fact, the largest in the area—operation with ten facilities covering four and a half million square feet in the St. Louis market. |
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GENCO and Ozburn-Hessey Logistics are setting the standard in product distribution.
By James Nicholson
In a new industrial park just north of Granite City two third party distribution center companies, GENCO and Ozburn - Hessey Logistics (O-H) are setting the standard in product distribution. One’s mental image of a warehouse is now as obsolete as the typewriter or cassette player, as contemporary product distribution has little to do with
storage and everything to do with efficiency and flexibility.
| GENCO’S General Manager Ed Ehrenberger |
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GENCO, a leader in supply-chain management serves a diverse range of customers throughout North America, Australia and the United Kingdom. A tour of its 2,000 long, 1.3 million-square-foot Metro East distribution center exhibits an immaculate space filled with pallets of products. It is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, by 230 teammates. General Manager Ed Ehrenberger stresses the team aspect of GENCO’s work staff. “We start every shift with a team meeting and exercise session to help encourage a family atmosphere. We are unsurpassed in providing a safe working environment as our team has worked more than one million hours without a lost time injury. For our office staff, we even provide an indoor mile long walking track for use during breaks and lunches.”
Ehrenberger points out that every pallet entering the center is bar-coded. As each shipment is checked in through the complex’s welcome center, it is identified and tracked through its period in residence at the center. “We’re continuing to evolve,“ Ehrenberger stresses, “In the second quarter of this year, we’ll institute voice pick technology in which a computer will talk to a team member through a headset which, in turn, will fast track job performance.”
The distribution center houses aisle upon aisle of full pallets for fast turnover and also provides shelving for individual cases of products, allowing the fast assembly of
pallets of varying products. One of GENCO’s major customer, Unilever, has been with them for fifteen years. “We’ve grown with our existing customers,” Ehrenberger explains, “and our ability to continuously increase the value of our services brings new customers to the organization. We help improve productivity and are constantly looking for innovative solutions for our customers. The more efficient our efforts, the more the customer saves money; the more we can lower costs, the more business they give us. Our Unilever network is the most efficient, productive and safest in the industry.”
Ozburn - Hessey Logistics, founded in 1951 and headquartered in Tennessee, provides fully integrated supply chain solutions for large, medium and small customers with complete A to Z management. That A to Z management takes many forms. For instance O-H Logistics provides assembly of wiring harnesses that are sent to numerous vehicle manufacturers. Many items purchased at nationwide discount and home improvement stores have been packed at O-H on their way to the display aisles. If your yacht has a dinghy aboard in case of imminent disaster, it may well have been inflated, tested and repackaged by Ozburn - Hessey. “Our value added services,” Senior Vice-President Kevin Westervelt explains, “provide whatever—light assembly, pallet displays, co-packing, kitting, sequencing—the customer needs. It’s what has separated us from the competition and taken the concept of value added services to another level.”
Ozburn - Hessey is a large—in fact, the largest in the area—operation with ten facilities covering four and a half million square feet in the St. Louis market.
Clients include major consumer packaged goods manufacturers as well as numerous international beverage companies. Within its domestic network, it manages over 100 buildings and well over two million square feet in 20 states. The company also provides nationwide transportation and transportation management services.
According to Westervelt, what sets Ozburn - Hessey apart from the rest of the field are the flexible and scalable solutions it can offer through its varied locations, spaces and people systems—“We deliver what our clients need.” “Ozburn - Hessey,” Westervelt continues, “offers a continuous motion of newness. As our customers’ needs seasonally expand and contract, we provide them
flexibility within our network. We’ve set the best practices in place to take to new clients.” The result is an ability to “speed products to market”. “Our performance and cost efficiency attracts long-term clients.” It also attracts new ones. “Once an account is green lighted,” explains Westervelt, “we have to deliver.”
Inhouse, Ozburn - Hessey has developed its own tier one warehouse management system, SynapseTM, and operates numerous different client warehouse management
systems. The result is an ability to “speed the market”. O-H Logistics also offers the
G-Log®GC3TM transportation management system, which fully integrates with Synapse. All of O-H Logistics systems are web enabled, which provides clients complete visibility of their products throughout the supply chain.
Both GENCO and Ozburn - Hessey obviously deliver the goods in an extremely efficient and innovative manner. No wonder the
flood plain just north of 270 off Illinois Route 111 is suddenly a continuous commercial
circuit of semis coming and going,
transporting and distributing a wider variety of products than seems probable—or even possible. |
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