INTEGRATING DISTRIBUTION WITH CONSTRUCTION According to Footer, one of UMC’s biggest challenges was the variety of tools being used by different unions, departments, and projects within UMC – a fragmented, overlapping product mix that made it difficult to stock and plan for project needs. His first order of business: collaborate with Fastenal to create a standardized list of parts that would meet the majority of application needs across the business. Next, Fastenal’s implementation team set up a compact onsite ‘branch’ to stock and manage those core items. In addition, vending machines were placed in UMC’s two fabrication shops and on project sites, providing immediate access and traceability to high-moving consumables. To meet UMC’s daily needs, Fastenal has a full-time manager and two part-time employees working on the campus with the same hours as the team from UMC. The program is also supported by two Fastenal construction specialists, Corey Roberts and Aaron Coffman. “What we found is that we have created an addition to our staff,” said Donaldson. “The Fastenal employees work with our team, they communicate with them. They make sure they’re on top of the billing issues, making sure the receiving is being done properly. The other part of that is they incorporate and work with our safety group and help us to look at samples of new products, an opportunity that we don’t always have with a lot of vendors. So, it’s been in some ways a bit of a luxury to have that in house where you can walk out to the store and you can get information, you can get product, and they’re very responsive and helpful.” Fastenal has invested in the partnership through onsite staffing, point-of-use solutions, an everevolving mix of onsite consigned inventory, and is now issuing tools right to jobsites. All of this helps UMC leverage the Fastenal model to drive delays and costs out of their business. SIMPLIFIED WORK One of UMC’s previous pain points was excessive processing of POs (which totaled around 40,000 per year prior to Fastenal). Fastenal’s IT team provided an e-business integration solution that dramatically reduced paperwork and administrative costs for UMC’s purchasing department. Instead of having to cut individual POs for all of the orders Fastenal fills each week, a single itemized weekly invoice flows to UMC’s tool and equipment manager, Melissa Feiler, to review. “Fastenal has helped us immensely with cutting back on POs and the amount of work going up to our purchasing department,” said Melissa Feiler. “The Fastenal onsite staff issue invoices directly to me, and they don’t send it all up to purchasing anymore. So, it’s been cutting back on the amount of POs that our team has to write. We only have one invoice for, say, 100 orders a week. That’s 100 fewer POs in purchasing.” Meanwhile, the Fastenal vending solution helps UMC on two fronts: by putting commonly needed supplies at the points where they’re used the most (within UMC’s two on-campus fabrication shops and, more recently, on remote jobsites), and also by connecting each vended item to an individual and a specific project code. This allows UMC to run detailed reports to see where items are going, how usage is changing, and where adjustments are needed. “The beauty of the vending machines is that the guys on hand will have the materials that they want when they need them,” said Footer. “They walk up and put in their employee number and their job number and they get exactly what they want. It’s extremely helpful because we do not write POs for that. It’s all done electronically. We get a report at the end of the week, and we go through and look at each line item to make sure it was correct and got applied to the right job. Then it goes and gets uploaded into our system. It never goes into the purchasing department to write a PO. So it takes fewer hands to do the work that we used to do.” The machines send digital alerts if stock gets low, and the Fastenal onsite team handles replenishment so that UMC’s team can stay focused on their projects without worrying about inventory. Product standardization, onsite inventory and support, point-of-use vending, and e-business integration – each helps UMC operate more efficiently and focus on what they do best. “While the success of the relationship between UMC and Fastenal has helped to bolster our growth in the last few years, what we will need moving forward is further technology and innovation in partnership with Fastenal,” said Donaldson. “The past success of the relationship and all of the technology and innovation that’s been brought to it have been fantastic. What we’re more excited about is the growth opportunity between the two companies. Innovation and technology will drive that. It’s an emerging market that we have to meet a large demand for, and we feel as partners, we can do that.” Check out the video: https://www.fastenal.com/innovators
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