Orgill Capacity Expansion & Equipment Replacement

The Client

An independent hardware distributor serving more than 11,000 retail hardware stores, home centers, pro lumber dealers, and farm stores throughout the United States and Canada, and over 50 countries worldwide.

The Challenge

Orgill is one of the fastest growing distributors in the US, with doubled sales in the past 10 years and 15 times growth from the 1990s. With organic and global pandemic growth catapulting them even further, Orgill needed to find a solution supporting capacity expansion. Additionally, they needed to boost bandwidth to reach more clients in the United States and Canada and implement a solution to drive down network costs and reduce shipping time.

With the purchase of another company in the Northwest, Orgill decided to build a new distribution center in Idaho to cover their client base throughout the northwest United States and into northwest Canada. The client engaged KPI to expand their capacity while also setting up and updating their current facilities for the future.

The Solution

Orgill decided to invest in expanding existing facilities and building new ones, allowing them closer proximity to clients to reduce delivery time and cost. In the Utah facility expansion, pallet positions were doubled, and full case modules and VNA (very narrow aisle approach) were implemented, immediately expanding capacity. Orgill and KPI developed control flow gravity to the shipping doors, and engineering design work was done on their repack modules, including shelving, carton flow, and pallet flow. Batch picking is now possible with up to six orders simultaneously with voice pick.

All existing Orgill DCs were transitioned onto one similar base software platform, a new WCS system supported by KPI. The new system allows Orgill to cross-train management and employees, allowing management to move easily to another facility and have full knowledge of how the system works.

The Value