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Mike Bates: Location, Lead Time and a Quick Bulkhead Fix
Location might not be everything, but in Mike Bates’ job it counts for a lot. As inbound freight logistics manager for Thurston Foods, Bates wages an endless campaign to find carriers to serve his warehouse in Wallingford, Conn. With few outbound loads available in the area, truckers delivering to the regional food service distributor often […]
Read MoreAndy Gustafson: Logistics for the Rich and Famous
To keep the rich and famous cruising in style, someone has to overhaul the engines, install the saunas, and replace the teak railings on the world’s largest yachts. Andy Gustafson’s job is to make sure the technicians who repair and refit these luxury vessels have the materials they need—whether that means sandblasting sand, electronic equipment, […]
Read MoreCarol Carrieri: Life-Support Logistics
Carol Carrieri had a warehouse full of medical supplies. The problem was how to get them into Manhattan. Minutes after she and her staff at McKesson Medical-Surgical’s distribution center in Dayton, N.J., learned of the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center, they started calling customers in New York to find out what they […]
Read MoreLewis Dibert: Spinning Red Into Gold
Despite an affable disposition, Lewis Dibert spends his days seeing red. As director of logistics for Red Gold Inc., each day from July through October he moves hundreds of truckloads of tomatoes from fields in five states to be packed into cans at three Indiana production plants. The rest of the year, he brings in […]
Read MoreAlex 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, […]
Read MoreBrittain 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 […]
Read MoreBrian 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 […]
Read MoreKaren 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 […]
Read MoreBob 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, […]
Read MoreMichael 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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