Maines Paper and Food Service provides fast turnaround on a range of products. That's important because the company employs 1,200 people and rings up $1 billion in annual sales. Moreover, the Maines fleet of lift trucks figures prominently in helping this food distributor best serve its customers.

"Whether they're a small family-owned restaurant or a large institution, our customers rely on us to provide high-quality products just-in-time," says David Maines, executive vice president. "We stock over 16,000 items with more than 12 categories of food, including dry goods, frozen, produce, dairy and seafood items."

Several years ago Bill Maines, co-chairman of the board, and David Maines formed a senior management team to evaluate and reengineer the company's distribution process.

"New accounts, expanding product lines, and increasing numbers of SKUs (stockkeeping units) had forced us to use offsite storage in first one, then a second warehouse, and eventually to add public storage at two local companies to keep up with demand," says Bill Maines.

The team recommended that Maines build a new distribution center consolidating the company's multiple sites – five in all – into one state-of-the-art facility. This DC would incorporate industry leading technology and equipment.

"Consolidating our warehouses," says Bill Maines, "reduced management requirements, time delays for product deliveries, and multiple handling of pallets." Some pallets had been handled up to three times, from warehouse to warehouse, for example.

"Equally important," he continues, "we needed equipment and partners that could deliver consistently and reliably, after the sale." Maines counted on its lift truck supplier "to provide the right solution, price, and performance to keep our distribution center up and running," he adds.

With the assistance of a local dealer for a national lift truck manufacturer in designing the new DC's layout, Maines built a 300,000 square foot facility. It features storage rack of several types: pushback, drive-in, and narrow-aisle rack. There are 49 aisles of racking served by the lift truck fleet, with some rack 11 levels high.

Computer simulations, which were run by the lift truck dealer, determined how many vehicles were needed to support this system. Maines' fleet of vehicles now consists of 131 pallet trucks, including 81 vehicles with long-john forks for orderpicking; 3 turret trucks; 18 reach trucks; 2 orderpickers; 2 deep-reach trucks; 3 standup counterbalanced trucks; and 1 straddle truck. A technician from the local dealer provides full time, on site maintenance.

With over 100 lift truck operators, points out Pat Deordio, director of warehousing, Maines employs two full-time certified trainers to implement the lift truck manufacturer's safety training program. The manufacturer, he adds, "works hand-in-hand with customers to help ensure they meet the new OSHA requirements for forklift training."

Raymond
800-235-7200
www.raymondcorp.com