Over half of US households, equaling over 80 million homes, have at least one pet, which has placed the pet products industry on a pathway of consistent growth. It’s no surprise then that one of King’s clients in this industry has experienced exponential growth, increasing their market share in the specialty pet food arena.

This particular client wasn’t new to King. We had designed and implemented a large market distribution program a few years ago when they launched a new pet food brand, much of which was produced in Minnesota. Their original business/brand had been located at a fulfillment provider in Colorado since the company started in 2008.

The client and King Solutions opened exploration in 2019 into whether it could relocate its other business from Colorado to King Solutions. The added business would triple the size of the account at King and would demand approximately 800 additional racking locations. Additional capacity would also be needed to support future growth of both the client’s brands.

The challenge
While the client’s Colorado location was conveniently located within proximity to their headquarters, there were growing concerns that their operation would not be a long-term solution due to its limited growth potential and limited integration capability.

What they needed was a new combined program that would leverage the successes of the existing logistics program (provided by King) and would also include:

Complete fulfillment services
Transportation of products
Revised pricing to fit its new business plan
Capacity to fit growth projections
Commitment to a true long-term partnership
State of the art technology and advancements that would continue to grow and evolve with the business

Where was this pet foods supplier to find everything they needed in a logistics program? They needed to look no further than their current third-party logistics provider (that’s us!). Recognizing the performance and technical capability of the King Solutions program, they made the decision to expand their partnership with King by moving to a new logistics program that would provide for their service, cost objectives, future expansion and growing needs.

The King solution
King Solutions worked with the client’s internal team to design and move to an effective program that prioritized:

Order integration
Automated report sharing and information transparency
On-time service

King meticulously planned for every aspect of the move. Most integration methods were already in place and running with excellence and were extended into the new business plan. Any necessary adjustments in integration and reporting were made in order to account for the different aspects of the business to be moved. The move took place over the course of a couple of phases.

Phase one: coordination of product
Detailed product information for every SKU was loaded into King’s warehouse management system and all vendor and customer information was loaded into King’s transportation systems.

Phase two: transfer of product
Products were transferred on a rigid schedule, and products inbound from manufacturers were rerouted to be received in time for alignment with orders placed.

The large volume move from Denver was accomplished with very minimal downtime. All aspects of the move and launch were carefully planned and executed to achieve a very quick turnaround time with minimal lapse in service.

King provided absolute transparency regarding the status of all products while in transit. As part of the critical path, a weekly update call was utilized from the beginning to provide project visibility throughout the move and launch. These updates continue well beyond the launch to ensure all objectives have been met.

The results
The planned move of the product from the Denver facility was exceptionally orchestrated with minimal order downtime or delays. Receiving was expedited to quickly get products in inventory so order processing could begin promptly.

The new beginning of receiving and order processing in the new program at King was seamless and efficient, and King’s commitment to transparency with the client helped them maintain control over their business through every step, knowing that if there were any delays they would be totally in tune, allowing them time to communicate with any customer that may have been impacted.

Because King was providing and monitoring transportation, we were able to have full visibility of product from the Denver facility as well as all materials that had been rerouted from vendors to synchronize the business startup at King. The overall move was a complete success, and the client is excited to continue working with King on future initiatives.

Work with King
Looking to design a new logistics program for your business? Need to redesign and move to a new program? King is here to help! Contact me today to begin planning the next phase of your company’s growth.