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Case Studies

Alex Reizinger: Stretching His Wings

When Sandy Reizinger first went to work for Ryder Supply Chain Solutions three years ago, he had barely a moment to breathe. Reizinger was part of a team managing transportation for Nortel Networks at its “systems house”—a final assembly and distribution center in Montreal. As logistics coordinator, he built 10 to 12 daily trailer loads, […]

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Brittain Ladd: Doing It Right The First Time, Every Time

Success to me,” says Brittain Ladd, “is educating others on the importance of quality and doing the job right the first time, every time.” As a Six Sigma black belt, Ladd has dedicated himself to eliminating variance—making sure his organization adheres to the highest standards in every detail. Ladd is transportation planning manager for Michaels […]

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Brian Godfrey: An Explosive Career

Work is a blast for Brian Godfrey. As a logistics supervisor for Dyno Nobel North America, Godfrey is in charge of moving truck, railcar, and barge loads of ammonium nitrate (AN), a fertilizer used as an explosive in mining and construction. He negotiates transportation contracts, traces rail shipments, and routes his goods from manufacturing plants […]

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Karen Caswelch: Quality In High Gear

When Karen Caswelch joined Allison Transmission as director of purchasing last year, she had no corporate purchasing experience. But her record in operations and quality management made her supremely qualified to carry out her number-one mission. “The ultimate mandate,” Caswelch says, “is to keep the plants running. And you’ve got to keep them running with […]

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Bob Wegmann: Blood Work

As Americans jammed Red Cross blood centers after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Bob Wegmann and his staff worked the phones. Their mission: to get vendors to rush enough blood bags, swabs, printed forms, and other supplies to accommodate the hordes of donors. “Obviously, no one predicted Sept. 11. But we were able to predict, […]

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Michael Trotter: Striking a Balance

Loading pallets with electrical supplies bound for factories and construction sites, “you learn quickly that you can’t set light bulbs on the bottom and put wire on the top,” laughs Michael Trotter, director of logistics at Van Meter Industrial in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. But for a distributor with 29,000 SKUs of all sizes and shapes—from […]

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Andrea Greco: Greco’s Game

The biggest logistics challenge I have right now is being able to go fishing on the weekends and still spend time with my kids,” laughs Andrea Greco, vice president, supply chain for Fila USA. Shuttling between a job near Baltimore and a young family in New York demands careful organization. So does coordinating the supply […]

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