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Papermaker meets storage needs and customer expectations without interruption with help from trusted partner Warehouse Specialists Inc

SCA Tissue North America, a leading producer of tissue products for the commercial, industrial, healthcare and foodservice market segments, has built a solid reputation for not only its innovative Tork® products but also for its outstanding supply chain performance.

In the paper business, supply chain excellence requires special expertise in managing the ebb and flow of storage needs for finished product and raw material. And because SCA Tissue makes all of its napkins, towels and tissues from 100% recycled paper, its consumption of recycled fibre is huge. Annually, the paper maker converts about 800,000 tons of recovered fibre into products at its North American mills, including about 300,000 tons at its mill in Menasha, Wisconsin.

So when the Menasha mill needed to transition raw materials from one off-site warehouse to another without disrupting its supply to customers, SCA Tissue's sourcing and logistics people turned to a trusted ally, Warehouse Specialists Inc.

Headquartered in Appleton in Wisconsin's historic Paper Valley region that runs along the Fox River from Neenah and Menasha through Appleton and north to Green Bay, WSI recently was named a 2008 Top 100 3PL by Inbound Logistics magazine.

SCA Tissue North America has a long history of working with WSI. SCA Tissue is intensely focused on meeting and exceeding customer expectations with industry-leading fill rates and consistent on-time delivery of finished products in pristine condition. The company chooses vendors who share that zeal.

"Over the years, as our storage needs would grow and subside, WSI has been there," said Mike Jansen, SCA Tissue vice president - supply chain management. "They always figure out a way to meet our needs so we can continue to meet those of our customers."

In 2005, SCA Tissue Logistics experienced a dramatic increase in need for parent roll storage. "They needed 350,000 square feet (35,000 m²) of storage quickly and they needed it as close to the mill as possible," said Patrick Sullivan, WSI national accounts manager and the individual who handles the SCA Tissue account."

SCA Tissue and WSI worked closely together to effectively meet the immediate challenge while keeping logistics costs to a minimum. Then they began planning a long-range solution.

"Toward the end of 2006, SCA chose us as partners when they rebid their off-site storage needs," Sullivan said. While continuing to help handle the seasonal builds and fluctuating storage needs, WSI began planning with SCA Tissue to move their off-site inventory to a warehouse on Martin Drive, just a few miles from the Menasha mill and the Neenah converting facility.

SCA WSI/ADD ONE
As a result of solid planning over nine months, SCA Tissue was able in a space of just six weeks to relocate parent rolls and finished goods from a 44,000 m² leased warehouse space to a 38,700 m² warehouse owned by WSI. The warehouse is leased to SCA Tissue, whose employees operate it.

The smaller space was made possible by better design and management processes at the WSI warehouse, according to JoAnn Cheslock, SCA Tissue logistics manager, Midwest Region.

The move meant that 300,000 cases of product and tons of paper rolls had to be transitioned from a warehouse that SCA Tissue had been leasing from another company.

"In just a month and a half, we had to transition almost 2000 truckloads of paper rolls and finished goods out of the former warehouse space," said Cheslock. Remarkably, the transition took place without any disruption to customers at a time when SCA Tissue was at the peak of rebranding all of its products into the single global Tork brand of its parent company, SCA.

"This all occurred during our busiest time period and also during the global rebranding project," Cheslock said. "During the transition period, WSI even provided some additional labour to support our employees as they unloaded material at the newly leased warehouse and loaded outbound to our customers."

The physical move to the WSI warehouse on Martin Drive was completed and the keys were officially handed over to SCA Tissue on 1 August 2007.

"It all could have been disastrous but it ended up successful," said Richard Terio, senior strategic sourcing manager for SCA Tissue. "The key was the planning and our focus on managing every aspect of our supply chain with an eye on the needs and expectations of our distributors and their end customers."

Because of improved product storage in the Martin Drive warehouse and a more efficient configuration of the building, SCA Tissue is now able to fill trucks even faster and more efficiently and has pushed its enviable fill rates to record levels, Terio said.

WSI's thorough understanding of SCA Tissue's needs and challenges stems at least in part from its roots in the paper industry. WSI was formed in 1966 by six paper company forklift drivers. The original warehouse of 3000 m² was located in Combined Locks, Wisconsin, a Paper Valley community where the nation's first hydroelectric plant was built in 1882. WSI has since grown to a nationwide firm with more than 1.4 million m² of storage and more than 40 North American facilities that contain over 3.75 million m3 of storage space, enough to fill 10 Sears Tower buildings in Chicago.

In addition to storage space, the company offers a full range of strategic and tactical services, making full use of Total Quality Management, Six Sigma techniques, ISO 9000 training, handling expertise in dies and chemicals, and state of the art inventory management systems.

Still privately owned and run, WSI has never forgotten its paper industry roots. And while the company today manages movements of more than 15,000 rail cars and 500,000 trucks and an increasingly diverse variety of products, more than half of the inventory in its warehouses is paper or paper-related supplies.

SCA WSI/ADD TWO WSI's relationship with SCA Tissue goes back 30 years to the paper companies that preceded the existence of SCA Tissue, said Sullivan. SCA, a global paper and consumer products company based in Sweden, entered the North American market in 2001 and began acquiring paper mill assets in Wisconsin and elsewhere in the country. The mill in Menasha and converting plant in neighbouring Neenah are among its largest North American manufacturing operations, which includes facilities in upstate New York, Illinois and Arizona, and a greenfield operation in Alabama that recently underwent a major expansion. And because of WSI's expertise in the paper industry supply chain, SCA Tissue also occasionally consults the company when evaluating supply chain challenges at other plant locations in the United States. "They are national and seem to be located where we are or nearby," Terio said. But the heart of the relationship between SCA Tissue and WSI lies in the feeling of mutual partnership and trust. "They have our best interest at heart as much as their own," Cheslock said. Mike Udermann, WSI's global marketing & sales director, said his company's reputation is built on the core principles of Condition, Count and TimeSM, ensuring that customers' products are delivered accurately, on time and in good condition. "A box is a box is a box," agreed Sullivan. "It comes down to who is going to take care of you the best." TW