Manufacturing Support Services

Warehousing

Shrink to Grow– In manufacturing, it’s very difficult to add capacity within an existing plant, and real estate doesn’t come cheap.  By outsourcing your value added warehousing activities to Columbian Logistics Network, you can reserve more of your existing footprint for your proprietary processes.  From inspection of inbound raw materials to Certificate of Analysis (COA) verification, custom labeling, and EDI confirmation, Columbian can act as your warehousing “front end.”

Rest Assured– With food safety and security programs that are on par with our food processing customers, you can rest assured that physically moving those activities does not compromise their effectiveness.

Work Your Plan– Every manufacturing business does some level of Materials Resource Planning (MRP).  At Columbian Logistics Network, we partner with customers to set up Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) solutions so that your replenishment orders are automatically loaded into our Warehouse Management System (WMS), eliminating the need to trade spreadsheets, create manual orders, and numerous phone calls.  Setting up an EDI program with Columbian allows you to plan your work…and work your plan.

Transportation

Yard Management– Many manufacturing centers in today’s world simply don’t have enough dock doors to maintain high levels of throughput.  As a result, full trailers pile up in the yard, empty trailers dwell in doors, and productivity comes to a standstill.  Through a combination of best-of-breed technology and dedicated assets, Columbian provides the switching of trailers necessary to keep your gears turning.

Campus Shuttling– Many of today’s manufacturing centers aren’t just one building, they’re campuses.  If your business has a production line in one building, a packaging line in another, and finished goods warehousing in yet another, Columbian can help provide the dedicated capacity necessary to make sure your buildings don’t miss a beat.  Again using web-based software, and our network of assets, our Shuttling programs can grow to meet your needs.

Just-in-Time– Because Columbian’s warehouse and transportation services are tightly integrated, we offer the assurance of knowing that the Raw Materials, Work-in-process (WIP) Inventory, Components, and Packaging needed for today’s production schedule will arrive at the right dock door, right on time.  The Just-in-Time service from Columbian leaves your processing facility free to focus on value added activities.

Directing Traffic– Once materials have been sourced, sales & operations planning (S&OP) has been completed, production has been scheduled, and orders have been placed, someone needs to quarterback the movement of all of those components and complexities.  Columbian offers a tablet based dispatching solution that integrates directly with the Yard Management System software.  Dispatching loads in a Columbian solution really is as simple as “drag and drop.”

Value Added

Service Consolidation– Does it ever feel like your inventory is a pinball, bouncing around town for various value added services?  At Columbian, we offer a full slate of value added services that will eliminate the need to ship inventory to other facilities or vendors to rework a batch of components, apply custom labels, change configurations, or a host of other activities.  When warehousing with Columbian, you have the opportunity to add value to your inventory without allocating a single square foot of your production space to the initiative.

Foreign Trade Zone– Columbian’s status as a Foreign Trade Zone Magnet Site allows our warehouse facilities to serve as your “front door” to global procurement.  Users of our FTZ services can significantly reduce and/or eliminate duty and processing costs when importing goods.  Goods that are further distributed outside the US may end up paying no import duty at all.

Co-Location– If your business requires extensive testing of inbound raw materials by your QA or compliance department, why not house that department right in our building?  At Columbian, our Mission is to improve our customer’s supply chain.  To that end, if it makes sense to have QA, customer service, or other customer groups housed right in our buildings, we can provide dedicated, private, wired, and secure space to meet that need.