Material Management Group, Appleton, Wis., a national inventory-management-systems provider, supplies OEM customers with Class C items such as rivets, fasteners, fittings, and electrical components. According to the company, special-order turnaround from its rivet suppliers is critical. That's why it needed a quick fix when a rivet-design problem threatened to delay a customer's circuit breaker.
Material Management and its customer turned to American Rivet Co. Inc. American Rivet scheduled its usual production on alternate machines and ran extra shifts to meet the OEM's timeframe. In addition, it handled three design changes in material and finish with its in-house tooling to provide rivets that met the OEM's needs.
Since then, American Rivet has become a preferred supplier to Material Management and is vital to that company's success.
"Often, we get a blueprint from an OEM that wants price and availability information right away," says Jim Dlugopolski, director of purchasing for Material Management. He reports that American Rivet can turn around an order placed in the morning that same day. He adds, "They come through for us with the information we need, which has helped us win bids on more than one occasion."
American Rivet also helped Material Management maximize inventory efficiency with 5,000-piece-order minimums and variable-order quantities. Dlugopolski says the inventory flexibility American Rivet provides helps on model changes when OEM customers don't want to be stuck with excess inventory on phased-out models.
American Rivet Co. Inc.
Franklin Park, Ill.
