It was getting a little too crowded in Delta Faucet Company's three warehouses. As order volumes grew, it got harder to maintain the highest levels of customer service in the existing facilities. "We were flat out of space in our warehouses," recalls John Singleton, vice president of operations for the Indianapolis-based manufacturer.

The solution to that problem, managers decided, was a central distribution center in an optimal location to serve its customers. Instead of building a new facility, though, the company chose to expand an existing warehouse in Jackson, Tenn.

There were several factors in the Jackson warehouse's favor: The facility was fairly new (built in 1995), it had 290,000 square feet of space, and it had been designed with expansion in mind. Shipments from that warehouse, moreover, could reach about 75 to 80 percent of Delta's customers within 24 hours. And Delta had a good working relationship with the town, which made deciding on Jackson "a no-brainer," Singleton says.

Forté Industries, a Mason, Ohio-based consulting company, worked with Delta to plan the addition. "They sat with us from the time we started thinking about the DC and where we wanted to put it," Singleton says. "They were heavily involved in the configuration of the physical facility and helped us spec the level and degree of automation that was right for us."

In July of 2002, Delta broke ground on an expansion that added another 250,000 square feet to the warehouse and converted it into a full-service distribution center. The project was completed just over a year later.

The upgraded distribution center features an automated materials handling system, which allows Delta to fill more orders in less time than before. Today, the company processes between 30,000 and 40,000 orders each month. "Our ability to pick orders of great diversity, with many different line items and SKUs (stock-keeping units) on the same order, is greatly enhanced by the automation," says Singleton.

Delta and Forté worked with software vendor Manhattan Associates to integrate Manhattan's PkMS warehouse management software with existing processes.

Under the new system, three different zones allow workers to pick more efficiently, increasing their speed and accuracy. One is for picking split-case individual items, such as repair parts and accessories. Another, multilevel area is for picking full cases. Located between them is a replenishment section with full cases and skids of product that are used to replenish the other two areas. "Also, when we get orders that have full skids of a single SKU, we'll pick out of there," Singleton notes.

All three of those picking areas feed into a consolidation line that boasts more than two dozen sortation lanes, where items can be consolidated for shipment as a single order. "We can have 60 to 80 orders being worked at any given time at the end of those lanes," Singleton explains. "It gives us a lot of flexibility."

When the new central distribution center gets running at full speed, Delta Faucet will ship up to 80 percent of its orders from Jackson. The other two facilities will be converted into regional warehouses and will ship the fastest-moving items within their respective territories.

The new distribution system has brought productivity gains for the manufacturer. But the biggest benefits accrue to Delta Faucet's customers. Singleton sums it up: "We're trying to be able to process more product in a shorter time frame to shorten the overall lead time to our customers."

Founded in 1954, Indianapolis-based Delta Faucet Company is a division of the Masco Corp. Delta manufactures a wide range of faucets for both residential and commercial markets. It was the first company to manufacture the single handle, washerless faucet. Today Delta, marking its Golden Anniversary this year, markets its products in 53 countries.