Case Study: MSC lowers cost-to-serve and boosts customer service with Fortna

Drives Customer Service Up and Cost Down

MSC, an industrial supply leader with over $2 billion in revenue and more than 100 branches, was struggling with distribution capacity constraints and rising cost-to-serve as growth increased. The company also needed to maintain its next-day delivery promise for qualifying orders, so MSC turned to Fortna for help improving fulfillment operations and expanding capacity.

Fortna redesigned MSC’s distribution processes using a data-driven approach, including a prototype operation and a new paperless RF picking process at the Harrisburg facility. The changes improved picking, consolidation, and packing, cutting order cycle time by 75% from over 3 hours to 45 minutes, boosting productivity by 60%, increasing operating capacity, and delivering MSC’s biggest cost-cutting initiative in company history.

MSC

Doug Jones

EVP, Global Supply Chain Operations