Network reconfiguration that took thirty-two percent out of regional lead times

The company had grown by acquisition through the 1990s and 2000s, and its physical network reflected that history more than its current customer base. Eighteen distribution facilities served four geographic regions, with substantial overlap in coverage and meaningful inefficiency in the inter-facility transfers required to fulfill larger orders. Customer surveys had begun to register dissatisfaction with lead times, and a regional competitor had recently consolidated its own footprint and was using the resulting service improvement aggressively in commercial conversations.

The executive team, working with the founding family, had concluded that the network needed reconfiguration. They engaged Halverson Reed to design and accompany the program.

We worked through a six-month engagement structured in three phases. The first was a clear-eyed diagnostic of the existing network — by facility, by customer flow, by SKU, by inter-facility transfer pattern. The picture was both better and worse than expected: the network had real strengths in two regions, and meaningful, addressable inefficiency in the other two.

The second phase was the design — which facilities to close, which to expand, which inter-facility flows to eliminate, and how to redesign the order-to-delivery process to take advantage of the reconfigured network. We worked closely with the operating leaders and the family on the workforce implications, and the program was designed to manage transitions over a twelve-month period rather than imposing them in a single quarter.

The third phase was implementation. Halverson Reed remained in place through the consolidation, and the operations partner spent meaningful time on site at the two facilities undergoing the most significant change.

Four of eleven facilities in the affected regions were consolidated. Regional lead times improved by thirty-two percent, and customer survey scores rose meaningfully across both regions. Logistics cost as a percentage of revenue declined by 230 basis points and held through the second annual cycle.

The competitive narrative shifted: the regional competitor's service advantage was no longer in evidence in the company's commercial conversations. Two senior leaders identified during the program were promoted into the roles required by the reconfigured network.