DOWBRANDS EXPECTS DEPOT TO BOOST SERVICE

JAMES TENSER

INDIANAPOLIS -- With the opening of a new combined manufacturing and distribution facility in Urbana, Ohio, DowBrands says it is poised to bring new levels of customer service to more than 40% of its trade customers.

Products began shipping from the $50 million complex in September, Don Janish, vice president of operations for DowBrands, told Brand Marketing. Up to 25 million cases per year are anticipated to move through the facility, which promises greater market flexibility, decreased order lead time and lower inventory levels for the company's retail customers.

While still coming up to speed, the Urbana facility is expected to reach full capacity sometime in October, Janish said. Its advanced systems are designed to help DowBrands advance its capabilities in continuous replenishment and other aspects of Efficient Consumer Response.

Janish said that the new distribution capabilities give DowBrands' field representatives "a whole new set of tools" to use in responding to customer needs. "If you can talk and deliver on CRP and ECR, it allows us to offer a lot more to the customer in terms of customer service."

The new distribution center uses robotic equipment to move and store 13,000 pallets of merchandise in its 400,000 square feet. It is hard-wired with integrated business information systems linking not only with the Urbana manufacturing activities, but also tying in manufacturing and distribution facilities elsewhere in the United States, he said.

It will be a main distribution center for DowBrands home care and food care lines to customers throughout the Midwest, manufacturing household cleaners in its adjacent factory, and also warehousing and shipping products such as Ziploc plastic bags from three other manufacturing plants, in California, Michigan and Canada.

"This is a consolidated effort from a distribution standpoint. It allowed us to eliminate use of two-and-a-half other facilities at public warehouses in the Midwest," said Janish.

At the heart of the new capabilities at Urbana are highly integrated information systems, which electronically link information coming from processing and manufacturing areas into the distribution center and tie in further with retail customers' point-of-sale systems. Overlaid on the product flow information is the latest activity-based costing software, which is utilized in support of decision-making.

"This facilitates integration of all our facilities throughout North America," Janish said. "We are now in the process of installing the same software systems in our remote locations," he said.

The warehouse and distribution operation are a partnership between DowBrands and DSC Logistics, a Des Plaines, Ill., logistical services company. "This takes advantage of our technology and functional expertise in producing the product, coupled with their expertise in running distribution centers," Janish said. "They are a leader in their field."

Although DowBrands has been very active in continuous replenishment prior to this installation, said Janish, "This takes us one gigantic step closer. It allows us to satisfy the needs of the customer much more quickly and effectively."

He concedes that the ECR objectives of smaller, more frequent shipments under CRP and full truckloads can sometimes be a conflict of two goals. "You have to balance full truckloads against the just-in-time needs of customers."

That is where activity-based costing becomes so important, he continued. "Customers have varying priorities. Full truckloads may impact on price, for instance. The point is that we can respond to either in a much more efficient manner now than in the past."

The information systems at Urbana allow DowBrands to respond faster with less-than-truckload deliveries too, he added, by allowing quick and sure cost-benefit analyses that couldn't be performed previously.

"We can frequently give the customer responses to these kinds of questions when they are on the line," said Janish. "Those questions are common and have been common."

He added, "Some very large customer may want on-line information nightly or four times a day or whatever. Some others may not have those requirements. We will have the capability to work with them all on their own terms."

DowBrands is already managing inventories for a few of its customers, he said. "We also have our vendors managing our inventories and raw materials where they can," Janish said. "Think of the power of this kind of system when it gets to where it should be. Imagine a consumer buying a product through systems that connect all the way back to the raw materials."