New Distribution Center Puts Customer Service First

A major undertaking at Ariel has brought quality to the forefront again for our customers.

Five years after building a world-class distribution center away from the Ariel campus, demand for spare parts exceeded what the facility could handle. At the same time, a facility more than four times the size of the previous distribution center became available across the street from Ariel’s World Headquarters.

So, in a move to improve quality and delivery times, Ariel bought the 208,000 square foot facility and started moving our distribution center from the 50,000 square foot facility three miles away. After nine months of design work and benchmarking with other large Ohio companies, the new facility opened in July of 2017.

Two major changes came after benchmarking and design work.

Over 750 feet of automated conveyor was installed. This changed decreased employee travel time in the facility by 25 percent.

The Ariel Distribution Center now uses a parallel picking process, where all five zones pick products at the same time. This process brought a 65 percent reduction in time to pack out in most cases.

Those changes helped meet the challenge of maintaining efficiency after moving to the vastly larger facility.

“The move to the new distribution center was a great success and we witnessed a lot of Ariel teamwork throughout the process – working with manufacturing for the facility upgrades and computer services for the design and implementation of the extended warehouse management software,” Warehouse and Distribution Manager Joe McDonald said. “Months later, our operations are stable and working as planned. Ariel and Ariel’s customers will see the benefits of this facility for years to come.”

The move wasn’t simple. The facility had previously housed an electric switchgear manufacturer and had to be remodeled into a distribution center before the products made the three-mile trip. McDonald said the pick module racking system in the new distribution center has allowed for 70 percent more hand pick locations and 35 percent in pallet racks.

For more on Ariel’s spare parts and how to order them, go to www.arielcorp.com/Compressor-Parts.