Waukesha, WI - Bacou-Dalloz(tm), the world leader in personal protective equipment, has taken another significant step in becoming the single "head-to-toe" solution, providing top brands in all product categories. To further this goal in the Americas, which represents approximately half of the company's sales, Bacou-Dalloz has initiated Project One - a total transformation of their supply chain to create a single platform to serve their distributor customers. A key component of Project One is a new distribution / mixing center to be built in the Ohio Valley. The center will be designed based on RedPrairie(tm) distribution best practices and will be powered by RedPrairie supply chain execution solutions.
Bacou-Dalloz Group was founded in September 2001, through the merger of the Bacou Group and Christian Dalloz. These companies had grown through worldwide acquisitions of leadership brands, including in the Americas UVEX®, Howard Leight, Perfect Fit®, Whiting + Davis, Survivair, Biosystems, Titmus®, Laser-Vision, Lase-R-Shield and Securitex®. The Project One total supply chain transformation is designed to pull many of these brands of head and body protection equipment together to present a single face to their distributor customers.
Project One includes a new Ohio Valley mixing center. "This initiative will enable our distributor customers to place a single order across most Bacou-Dalloz brands, and receive a single shipment and invoice," said Peter Moore, Bacou-Dalloz Vice President - Supply Chain. "The new facility will serve as a mixing center for nine plants and six distribution centers in the Americas and additional international facilities. Thus, we needed strong functionality for inbound, cross-dock and outbound processing."
When Bacou-Dalloz began searching for a supply chain execution (SCE) solution to power their new mixing center, they looked beyond their local needs to find a system to potentially serve their European and Asian businesses as well. "RedPrairie has a world-class SCE that could fill that need and allow us to track inbound and outbound shipments globally," noted Moore.
Bacou-Dalloz also was looking for a full suite of SCE applications, including the ability to provide visibility over the web for their distributor customers. "We want them to be able to see and track their orders to build confidence in the mixing center process," said Moore. "We really liked the look and feel of RedPrairie's web interface and felt it would be easy for our distributor customers to use."
"Another important advantage of RedPrairie's SCE is their Productivity Management solution," continued Moore. "We intend to use their industrial engineering expertise to help us design the layout of the new distribution center to gain maximum efficiency. RedPrairie has strong references and considerable experience in both manufacturing and retail sectors, so we decided to build the center according to their standards. We're confident the best practices and advanced technology RedPrairie is providing will enable us to build a world-class distribution facility that will give us competitive advantage."
Commented John Jazwiec, RedPrairie Company Results Leader, "Bacou-Dalloz came to us with a vision for their distribution network that echoed the focus on achieving customer results that is central to our RedPrairie Approach. It isn't often that you get the opportunity to go into a situation like this and help the customer build a world-class distribution facility from the ground up. Bacou-Dalloz recognized they could use the expertise of our engineering staff to their advantage not only in the systems area, but also in developing best practices and facility layout. This is an advantage too often overlooked when companies evaluate solution providers."
The new distribution center is projected to go live in 2004 to service shipping sites in the United States, Canada and Mexico. It will complete the total supply chain transformation that will make Bacou-Dalloz a world leader in distribution.