Olympic Steel – Schaumburg, IL: Claudio Rodriguez

Maintaining the PVC inventory at the Schaumburg division can be challenging, especially with frequent supply chain interruptions. Claudio Rodriguez, First Shift Supervisor, recognized the opportunity to improve this process and took action.

He worked with Sales and Operations to understand the quantities of PVC needed each month, taking into consideration different sizes and types of PVC used each day. Based on his findings, he determined they needed to triple a usual order to meet their monthly demand. To prepare for the first big order, Claudio worked with the Maintenance department to install additional pallet racks to accommodate the increased volume, labeling the storage area to identify the product. The new process has helped the Schaumburg division maintain an appropriate inventory of PVC. The effort also allowed Schaumburg to supply PVC to some other Olympic Steel divisions that weren’t able to source the material from their suppliers.

Lesson Learned: Putting in the extra effort and expense helped the division reduce costs and downtime in the long run.