Supply Chain Brain

All American Poly Wraps Up
New Distribution Network
Gaining Command & Control
Of Global Supply Chains

“My angle is unique because I know what customers are looking for in terms of delivery, and I also know the capacity constraints on our machines,” says

Berkowitz.

This customer asked All American Poly to provide their

20 facilities with the ability to do same-day pickup of their orders from All American Poly’s plants or to have the company deliver to them the next day. “Our three plants could not support all 20 of their locations,” says Berkowitz. He explains that he had to look at the capacity at each of the plants and their geographic location in relation to the facilities of the customer. Berkowitz came up with a plan under which nine of the customer’s facilities could do same-day pickup from the plants, while the other 11 would receive next-day delivery. To serve these 11, All American Poly partnered with five strategically located public warehouses.

“The product that we make for this particular company comes in very long pallets, so we had to find facilities able to deal with this size pallet,” he says. “Handling had to be kept to a minimum because the long pallets could break up.” The company also wanted to keep transportation costs down by using truckload or rail. “Our business is what is known as a penny business,” says Berkowitz. “We can lose an order based on a penny difference in price to a customer.”

As a result of this network, the customer is able to keep its inventory low because it can pick up or receive deliveries of product as needed, says Berkowitz. “They have lean inventory on their end and we are able to keep our costs down as well. It’s a good partnership.”

When All American Poly, a manufacturer of

industrial plastics used in packaging, was asked

by a large customer to set up a quick-delivery net-

work for a packaging product with unusual han-

dling characteristics, Steve Berkowitz, vice presi-

dent of logistics and production planning, had to

draw on both aspects of his job title to meet this

customer’s needs.

To view this video interview in its entirety, visit www.SupplyChainBrain.com.

Command and control, a phrase borrowed from

the military, well describes the key capabilities

needed to manage today’s complex global supply

chains, says Ned Blinick, vice president of sales

and marketing at Blinco Systems.

Achieving command and control requires the integration and synchronization of information across the supply chain to enable informed decisions and actions, says Blinick.

“Global supply chains are more complex than domestic supply chains and typically involve more partners that need to be harmonized in their activities,” he says. “Importers, distributors or manufacturers that are bringing in products via a global supply chain need to have the ability to influence the actions of partners across the supply chain to ensure that their products arrive on time and at the right price to support delivery to their ultimate customers.”

Too often companies fail to achieve adequate command and control because they are organized into silos and they select technology solutions that support siloed activities, he says. Because of this, “information generally tends to remain in individual silos and does not get disseminated across the organization, either from an operational or management perspective,” Blinick says. “Therefore, these organizations don’t reap the benefits that command and control of the flow of goods across the entire supply chain would bring.”

Blinick says these benefits include better visibility of goods in motion, allowing those goods to “become real inventory to supply distribution requirements,” better cost control from purchase order through to final payment and resolution, and better compliance with government rules and regulations. “In the post-9/11 environment, with rules and importing constraints increasing, a command and control capability allows you to meet those requirements much more effectively and provides support for Customs audits,” he says. “It also has benefits in terms of asset management and cash flow.”

In summary, he says, “command and control brings the entire organization into a more harmonious and unified supply chain. That is the ultimate benefit.”