Food Distribution: Response Time Matters
Material Handling Technologies recently worked with one of the largest leaders in supply chain services. They provide grocery and foodservice solutions for convenience stores, drug stores, chain restaurants and mass merchants. Operating over 80 distribution centers across the U.S., the company buys, sells and delivers more than 50,000 different consumer products to nearly 110,000 locations.
This food distributor sought a partner for their Battleboro, NC location that could provide a quick and cost-effective solution for moving empty boxes. After reviewing several potential material handling providers proposals, the company selected MHT.
“When other companies proposed long lead time solutions that were over budget, the MHT team was incredibly responsive and eager to provide a solution we were happy with,” the food distributer stated. “With their experience in custom conveyor applications, they acted as a partner with the shared goal of improving our process at a reasonable cost.”
In addition to their advanced conveyor capabilities, the MHT’s team’s responsiveness and ability to understand the vision and long-term conveyor needs were cited as the reasons MHT was ultimately chosen.
Beyond just supplying equipment
Prior to MHT’s arrival, the distributor’s empty box conveyor was outdated and not working. They did not have a good solution for moving empty boxes away from the picking area. This led to many empty boxes on the floor of the work area, affecting the company’s order picking productivity.
MHT engineers travelled to the client’s site and determined the ideal configuration to satisfy their needs. With a 30-day timeline, it was imperative for MHT to stay on track and implement the solution flawlessly. Equipment was put on order and a crew was assigned to start disassembly of the existing conveyor.
By pinpointing each component that would be “quick ship” MHT had the conveyor beds and drives on site within a week. The longer lead time items were fabricated at MHT’s facility and rushed through production to meet the deadline. This included custom chutes, guard rails, conveyor and supports along with the electrical shop building the electrical panel. MHT was able to separate themselves from their competition because of their capabilities to fabricate many of the components in their own facility that weren’t considered “quick ship” from their supplier. MHT’s mechanical and electrical field crews worked in total sync from start to finish of the system installation.
Service, scalability and speed
The project was awarded in November 2019. In addition to its advanced conveyor capabilities, MHT was very responsive and had the ability, with minimal time, to implement a new conveyor system before the end of the year. The solution was operational in just 30 days— a fraction of the time it would take other material handling equipment providers to achieve, enabling the distributor to increase efficiency in their order picking before the end of the year as originally requested.
MHT takes great pride in their ability to swiftly provide turn-key automation solutions by thinking outside the box all the while saving the customer money. “We strive to exceed everyone’s expectations whenever we can. Our team jumps at the opportunity to do better than our competition,” said Scott Englert, Co-owner of Material Handling Technologies, Inc.