Industrial Products Co. is “One happy VPA customer”By Karen E. Thuermer, AJOT Industrial Products Co. (IPC), a fastener distributor located in Lynchburg, VA is one happy Port of Virginia customer. An industrial supply firm that concentrates on inventory management systems, Scott Wolf, IPC president, explains that the goal of the business is to supply Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) with all of their needed low cost items. Those products —screws and fasteners—may be predominately small, but they are critical to keeping a factory up and running. “For example we have a customer in Lynchburg for which we manage over 4,000 different items,” Wolf says. Although IPC’s customers are located throughout the United States, IPC maintains warehouses in Virginia, Mississippi, and Florida. “From those locations we cross-dock the shipments,” Wolf explains. “Shipments come to Lynchburg where they are broken down by skids or boxes. They are then transported to the three warehouses, or, in some cases, the shipments go to stores, depending on the customer.” “We receive our shipments into our own stores on the customer’s site,” explains Matt Hankins, IPC materials manager. “Our customers do not own any of these products until they need them and we bill the customer for them. Our own personnel takes the items to the customer when they are needed. This way, the customer gets the products just-in-time. They pay for the items only once a month.” This serve is what distinguishes IPC as an inventory management company. “Our customers do not have to manage the inventory. They don’t have to receive it; they don’t have to worry about quality control; all they are going to do with this product is have it when they need to put it into their equipment. The thing that we guarantee our customers is that they will not run out of stock. What makes a customer very upset is when their factory runs into problems and there are delays over not having a 5 cent screw.” Highly competitive business Without a doubt, IPC operates in an extremely competitive market. Lynchburg is home to five such distributors, a high percentage for a city with only 70,000 people. “Over the years, we have had to begin importing our products from overseas in order to remain competitive,” Wolf says. “We have to look at every profit point.” As such, and with those imports coming from Southeast Asia, IPC utilized the Port of Long Beach. “Southeast Asia is now the hotbed for these types of products,” Hankins says. “There are fewer and fewer domestic manufacturers making these products.” Recently, however, IPC has shifted to bringing its cargo through the Port of Norfolk. “This change of ports has been very beneficial to us,” Hankins say. “When we guarantee our customers these parts, we guarantee that their availability will not shut the manufacturing process down. So it is especially important that I take into account what is going on at the seaports in terms of our materials coming in. When the Port of Long Beach longshoremen decided to go on strike, I still had to supply the manufacturers with their products.” “We never have to wait for our shipments,” he says. “Another thing: when you ship through the Port of Long Beach there are more hands touching the shipment. The container has to go to a staging area, either by rail or truck, then it is transported across country to the East Coast to another staging location. Then it has to be trucked to us. This means the shipment may be handled four times. By shipping through Norfolk, not only are transportation costs cheaper; we have much more control of our shipment.” While IPC’s total annual shipments pale in comparison to many of the Port of Virginia’s customers, the company does bring in 50 teus over the course of a year. Not so long ago, IPC brought in 25 containers annually. “Our customers use 1 to 2 million fasteners a year,” states Hankins. “Shipping companies love that type of product because, while it is small in volume, it is heavy.” IPC u