Norton Company Opens Indiana Distribution Center for Abrasive Products
Norton Company (Worcester, MA) has opened its Indianapolis, IN-based regional distribution center for its complete lines of stock abrasives, which include superabrasives, coated and bonded abrasives, and nonwoven finishing products. Employing advanced warehouse management systems (WMS), the new facility will cut customers' transactional costs by simplifying ordering, receipt, and billing. The new distribution center will also shorten shipment schedules by two-thirds.
Andrew Moriarty, director, distribution and logistics, Norton Abrasives North America, said the WMS system will not only place like items together on a pallet, with a master packing list, but also print individual placards for each product number. Moriarty said this will make it easier and faster for the customer to receive and shelve stock abrasives lines, saving the distributor-customer time and money.
The Indiana facility will serve distributors in 37 states throughout the Eastern and Mid-Western U.S, and will add Canada to the list in fall of this year. The new distribution center will handle industrial, automotive, and contractor-DIY abrasives.
The Indianapolis distribution center is 40,000 sq ft with approximately 7,000 sku's available. It is initially employing 65 people but the company plans to have over 100 employees when in full operation. The main supplier of lift trucks, storage bays, and other gear for the new distribution center is Crown Equipment of Chicago, IL.
Under the previous system, several Norton manufacturing conversion and distribution facilities shipped directly to distributors. This required distributors to place orders, receive products, and pay invoices from each facility. Now, distributors reduce transaction costs by dealing with one center for all stock abrasives.
"All products will arrive at the distributor's receiving dock on one pallet," said Moriarty in the company's report. "And products with the same part number will be placed together. When a shipment requires more than one pallet, like products will be grouped together on a pallet. In addition to a master shipping list, each product will be individually identified with its own placard to make product receipt and stocking faster and easier, and therefore less expensive."
Moriarty said that the WMS Biaware software (Haushahn gmbh) will help reduce the whole cycle to three days initially and, eventually, down to one business day. Norton's goal is to provide most of its distributors, if not all, with product within four days of ordering. Currently, it takes from seven to 10 days.
Norton Company, One New Bond St., Box 15008, Worcester, MA 01615-0008. Phone (508) 795-5709.