Outdoor Cap (Bentonville, Ark.) a manufacturer of full twill and half mesh headgear for sporting and hunting activities, is partnering with OptiLogistics Inc. (Dallas), marketer of the OptiLedge transport packaging solution, to ship its product display bins to Cabela’s and Wal-Mart.
WSP Inc. (Rogers, Ark.), is supporting the joint effort by building the displays and attaching OptiLedges to each unit for improved shipping efficiency and other benefits. The first shipments of the displays were sent to retailers in mid-July.
Outdoor Cap previously used custom-made 4 foot by 2 foot wooden pallets that were typically discarded after one use. In addition to the cost of disposal shouldered by the retailer and the environmental impact, the prior system required extra space in all phases of the supply chain to store the pallets.
“The OptiLedge solution is more efficient for our trading partners,” says Mike Ober, national sales manager for Wal-Mart at Outdoor Cap. “our supply partners and for us as a company. We expect to see a more productive flow of our product through to retail and that should lead to improved in-stock positions and higher sales, as well as reduce the environmental footprint of the process.”
The complete OptiLedge solution, which features a unique “L”- shaped unit load platform alternative, machines for manufacturing the OptiLedge; machines for assembling unit-loads and the technology for the efficient handling, transport and storage of unitized product.
“Among the primary benefits that we see in the OptiLedge system,” says said David C. Kinney,
president, WSP, “are a reduction in the amount of storage space we need in our facility and a marked improvement in transportation efficiencies. It is also more employee friendly than other transport platforms we use.”
The OptiLedge team is working with Outdoor Cap and WSP to make sure the delivery of the display bins is optimized. This includes using packaging experts to engineer the assembly and transportation process from the Outdoor Cap facilities through WSP and on to the retailers.
“The use of the OptiLedge by Outdoor Cap to transport displays to Cabela’s and Wal-Mart marks an important development in the acceptance of our solution in the North American marketplace,” says Ed Fuller, president and CEO, OptiLogistics (www.optilogistics.com).