Menlo lands HomeLife contract

By Staff -- Logistics Management, 9/1/2000

Menlo Logistics, a third-party logistics subsidiary of CNF, has signed a five-year agreement to provide business-to-consumer (B-to-C) supply chain management and logistics services to HomeLife, a national home-furnishings retail chain.

Menlo, based in Redwood City, Calif., will manage all aspects of HomeLife's supply chain, including supply chain design, information systems design/integration, transportation, warehousing, home delivery, product setup and repair, and reverse logistics. The deal means that Menlo, for the first time, will manage a client's supply chain from manufacturing through to home delivery, according to Menlo CEO John Williford. "It's about as complicated and difficult a project as we've seen," he says. "We're using all of our systems, plus several new ones."

HomeLife, previously a division of Sears (which is also a Menlo client), became a separate company in 1999. The privately held retailer, the seventh-largest furniture retailer in the United States, has 135 stores in 28 states and plans to expand, according to CEO Joe Baron, who adds that the company makes about 600,000 deliveries a year.

Menlo Logistics' engineers are designing a new distribution network and the related information technology infrastructure needed to support HomeLife's supply chain initiative. This will include nine distribution centers operated by Menlo, 23 delivery processing centers managed by Menlo, and a command center to manage and track supply chain activities. Systems supplied by Menlo include order management, warehouse management, transportation management, order response, and home delivery, which the company is integrating into HomeLife's sales, purchasing, and financial systems.

Baron says HomeLife expects Menlo to increase his company's cost efficiency and customer-satisfaction ratings, while reducing "not at home" deliveries and product damage. Furniture buyers' two major complaints are the length of time it takes (two to three months) to receive their purchases and receiving damaged goods, Baron says. He expects Menlo to address both of those issues.