Bellavita Tile, a leader in the North American tile industry, has implemented a number of highly progressive initiatives in order to benefit its growing list of North American customers. President/owner Duigan Mitchell stated, “Glass mosaic factories traditionally operate on a ‘produce-to-order’ basis.’This usually results in longer lead times for customers. To address this, we have created a program whereby we carry a specific inventory of glass materials at our factory in China, so that we can ship immediately on order placement or within, at most, 30 days.
“Additionally,” continued Mitchell, “to meet our current increased demand as well as planned future growth, we have significantly increased production capacity at our factory. May’s [numbers] will be double versus the same time last year, with a capability of ramping up capacity to triple our previous production.”
To ensure optimal implementation of these ambitious programs, a warehouse adjacent to the factory, capable of stocking 1000 pallets of glass plus raw materials, has been added. To increase the capacity, the firm is now utilizing the previous warehouse space, and intends to retrofit, enlarge or build entirely new workstations in the production facility, which will result in enhanced workflow yielding better production efficiencies.
“We have started the process of building up inventories while fulfilling current orders,” concluded Mitchell, “and plan to be totally set up by June 2013. This is all about speeding up the supply chain; enabling our customers to reduce the amount of inventory they have to carry, improving their turns, improving their return on investment, and responding faster to spikes in demand which is always a challenge for distribution.”