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Problem

One of the largest shipping and transportation companies in the world had an ongoing relationship with a competing caster manufacturer and had setup specific ordering numbers for most of their caster and wheel business.

The setup was well integrated, and the parts cataloging and ordering system being used has part numbers specific to caster manufacturer’s casters and wheels. Therefore, when it was time to order a specific caster, the system informed the Store Room Manager to order that specific part directly from the manufacturer.

This relationship had been established and integrated for so long that the process pretty much ran itself. All the caster manufacturer had to do was establish regular account maintenance with the shipping company to keep this repeat business. However, things were not maintained well over time, which led to a series of missed delivery dates and lost revenue for the shipping company.

This became a major issue. Due to the nature of expedited shipping, when the company needed casters, they didn’t have room for delays – especially since their customers relied on them to deliver on time.

Their current caster supplier was projecting extended lead times of up to 3 months on replacement heavy duty polyurethane wheels. This issue was exacerbated when these long lead times still could not be met. To make a difficult situation even worse, the caster manufacturer didn’t have any more replacement wheels left on the storeroom shelves.

This created an urgent situation that was getting worse by the minute. No casters meant that equipment was down, and it was costing the shipping company resources, man hours, and money.

With no recourse but to look for another caster manufacturer, they turned to Caster Concepts, who already had established a good reputation with them when the company needed to purchase casters with much shorter turnaround times.

Solution                                                                                                                                 

With a vertical manufacturing process and the ability to keep the production process in house, the Caster Concepts team had no problem producing all the different wheels necessary to help the shipping and transportation company when they were in dire need.

Where Caster Concepts’ competitor was not able to meet the needs of this common customer due to supply chain issues, the Caster Concepts’ team was able to meet or exceed the lead times promised in all cases.

Throughout all of 2022, these lead times ranged between 1-3 weeks for polyurethane wheels. In some cases, Caster Concepts was even significantly less expensive than the current supplier of the casters and wheels. Transparency, honesty, and being able to simply keep our word won the day.      

Result                                                                                                                         

With new casters supplied by Caster Concepts, the shipping company was able to get out of the jam they were in now that their equipment was up and running. This resulted in thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars in downtime and resource allocation savings.

The trust that Caster Concepts was able to build with the maintenance team was priceless. It has led the shipping company turning to Caster Concepts at every possible opportunity. One of the highest compliments we received was that Caster Concepts were always there when the phone rang. They were very pleased to get an equal product in a timelier manner.