A large manufacturer of residential building products was dealing with many issues associated with its fastener supply and inventory. There was no vendor management program in place, and the company often had to resort to receiving overnight delivery of fasteners in order to maintain workflow. Because of the lack of control over the purchase of fasteners, paperwork and management of costs had become a nightmare.

This was the situation that Craig Schmucker, Regional Sales Manager at All-Pro Fasteners, discovered in his initial meeting with this company. With the customer’s blessing, Craig began his fact-finding efforts by pricing 300 fastener SKUs. Of interest was the fact that of those 300 SKUs, almost 10% were not actually matched to inventory.

Craig also worked with the company’s engineering team, with the goal of consolidating as many fasteners as possible in order to help the customer better manage inventory. All-Pro also worked in collaboration with the customer to simplify billing and reduce burdensome paperwork.

Craig’s and All-Pro’s effort resulted in the customer enjoying a 4% decrease in the cost of its fasteners in Year 1, followed by a 3% reduction in Year 2, and  a 2.5% reduction in Year 3. Other benefits of this effort included much more manageable paperwork and invoicing processes and a significant reduction in the size of the company’s fastener inventory. In addition, based on a ready supply of fewer different fasteners,  the company’s manufacturing processes enjoyed a boost in efficiency.