SUCCESS STORIES
An esteemed global leader in industrial equipment manufacturing, boasting a history of nearly 150 years in business and a workforce of over 100,000 employees, sought to enhance its network design. The company’s operations encompass the distribution, installation, and servicing of diverse industrial health and safety systems worldwide. With an extensive network of small storefronts throughout the United States, each equipped with a storage space, the company faced the complexity of managing a dispersed network while ensuring the swift supply of essential units and parts to sustain critical institutions such as hospitals, schools, and data centers.
The company’s expansive presence in major cities, established to deliver services at a moment’s notice, resulted from rapid growth. However, this decentralized approach revealed the challenges that expansion can bring, including delayed shipping times, the high cost of real estate, and elevated overhead associated with managing multiple urban locations. Furthermore, the requirement for specific products at each location led to an overstock of parts across the network, with identical stock often located less than 15 miles away in another branch.
Alpine meticulously analyzed customer density, origin/destination pairs, and various factors to create a visual representation of strategically positioning proposed facilities for cost optimization and nationwide service coverage. Utilizing historical data, forecasted growth, labor market insights, customer needs, and close collaboration with the company, they arrived at a 6-distribution center network solution. Alpine provided a business case to support the transition to this new model and offered guidance for making informed decisions in today’s competitive and complex supply chain landscape.
Alpine’s Distribution Network Analysis yielded a range of recommendations capable of generating annual savings exceeding $24 million. Even the most modest changes promised an annual savings of approximately $2 million, offering the swiftest return on investment. Providing a strategic roadmap for future network design allows the company to systematically transition to a more efficient network, aligning with its resource availability. This partnership has been mutually beneficial. As the company continues to expand, Alpine’s data-driven proposals will assist in navigating the challenges of growth, furthering market penetration, and reducing overhead expenses.
