Manufacturer signs contract with Weber Distribution to manage its warehousing, transportation and distribution needs
Santa Fe Springs, CA — July 19, 2006 — Weber Distribution, a West Coast third-party logistics (3PL) and supply chain management provider for over 80 years, announced today that it has signed a five-year contract with California Innovations, the market leader in soft-sided insulated products.
As part of the agreement, Weber is managing the majority of California Innovations' U.S. import-related warehousing, transportation and distribution needs. Most of the product comes in from China and Weber ships, on average, 200,000 to 400,000 cases per month for California Innovations depending on the season.
Weber's reputation within the industry, pricing and history of shipping to large retailers helped us select the 3PL, said Carlos Garrido, California Innovations' director of operations (logistics and distribution).
To ensure items are available for its customers at anytime, California Innovations stores and distributes up to 1,000 stock keeping units (SKUs) of product at Weber's Southern Califoria-based Fontana facility, which opened earlier this year. The facility is California Innovations' largest distribution location, and Weber has dedicated approximately 200,000 square feet of the 303,000-square-foot facility to handling the soft-sided insulated products manufacturer's storage, inventory management, order fulfillment and outbound transportation needs for 2006.
Weber recently supported California Innovations' annual back to school
program where approximately 400 ocean containers were managed over a six-week time period. The containers were drayed from the Port of Los Angeles by Weber's in-house transportation division to its Fontana facility where the products were picked, labeled, routed and shipped out to many major retailers throughout the United States.
We had a very successful back-to-school shipping program primarily because of the contribution from the entire Weber team. This was on top of our regular business, which happened to be in peak season at the same time as we did the back-to-school business, said Garrido.
California Innovations also takes advantage of Weber's warehouse management system, known as LINKS, designed to provide customers with direct visibility and control over their inventory via the Internet. LINKS uses a combination of the latest radio-frequency equipment and barcodes to track the real-time movement of Weber's customers' products into and out of its warehouses.
Another value-added service that California Innovations uses is Weber's vendor compliance program, which manages all of the major retailers' specific routing, shipping and labeling requirements. At the heart of the compliance program is a custom-designed internal Web site that allows all of Weber's warehouses to reference every major retailers' most recent routing and shipping requirements, without having to individually review and interpret routing and vendor guides.
We have formed a long-term, strategic partnership with California Innovations, a leader in their market. They are well-respected, dynamic and innovative, said Bill Butler, Weber's senior vice president. Through close communication between our two companies, we look forward to growing our businesses together for many years to come.
