Book Distributor Leverages Buying Power to Gain Savings

Situation

A large book distributor utilizes multiple distribution centers across the United States. Each facility uses the same Integrated Forms, but purchases them from different local suppliers. This resulted in small run purchases, inconsistent quality, and long lead times.

Challenge

The book distributor partnered with Chicago Tag & Label to come up with a solution that would not only fix quality concerns, but also provide the same high quality forms to each location at a much lower price.

Program Highlights

Chicago Tag & Label worked with the book distributor to analyze the quality problems each distribution facility was having. Due to the different climates at each, their current forms both curled and oozed causing the printers to jam dramatically slowing down production. We came up with an integrated form solution that was thoroughly tested in each environment to prevent jamming.

Since Chicago Tag & Label is centrally located, we were able to store their finished goods and ship them out to the various distribution centers, thus provided shipping cost savings and dramatically reducing lead times.

Results

By leveraging their buying power, the book distributor combined all their orders for each distribution center into 1 order from Chicago Tag & Label. This resulted in a cost savings of over $250,000 annually. They also saved on shipping costs, reduced their lead times and fixed their quality issues.