Blog > Electrical > Case Study: Material Storage Lowers Project Costs

Challenge:  Reducing Costs

Our customer, Schuler-Haas Electric Corp., won a large local school project and needed storage space before the project start date. This would alleviate impending tariff increases on the purchase of $250K of lighting. They did not have site access available for material storage or enough space at their local shop.

Action: Introducing Material Storage Solutions

We recognized the challenge faced by the customer and proposed a solution that would provide storage for the lighting order in our new Binghamton branch. This solution allowed Schuler-Haas Electric Corp. to order the material before the tariff-related pricing increases took effect. The agreement to provide storage included material receipt, visual inspection, order verification, short-term storage, and coordination with the customer for material pickup or delivery, as needed.

Result: Significant Savings

Our ability to provide environmentally controlled material storage for the lighting material before the project start date allowed Schuler-Haas Electric Corp. to eliminate the additional tariff costs, which would have raised material costs by 10%. By ordering the material early, our efforts helped Schuler-Haas Electric Corp. save $28,000 in additional material costs due to the impending tariffs.

Our inside sales and warehouse staff were instrumental in providing material handling, receipt inspection, and verification of a total of 26 total shipments of material received for the project. An added benefit was the identification of visible damage to lighting fixtures at the time of receipt and the opportunity to contact the manufacturers to provide replacement fixtures before Schuler-Haas Electric Corp. receiving them onsite. The ability to provide receipt-inspection saved an estimated 19.5 hours of field personnel labor for our customer.