NSK Bearing New Dist. Center

INDIANAPOLIS--NSK Corp., which supplies bearings and related precision products to the automotive industry, has opened a new distribution center here. The 136,000 square foot facility houses NSK’s full product line, including its best-selling single row radial ball bearings.

NSK has four North American businesses that have combined sales of more than $700 million while employing some 2,000 people across the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

The new Indianapolis distribution center features a supply chain execution (SCE) and warehouse management software (WMS) system from MARC Global Services.

“Our North American business environment has evolved from the original business requirements for which our custom-developed mainframe system was originally intended,” explained Mary Keefer, NSK’s senior quality systems analyst. “There was quite a gap between our current system’s functionality and our new business requirements. We selected MARC because we felt it was the best fit for NSK,” she noted.

“It offers the functionality needed to meet the demands of multiple product markets, it’s user friendly, and it fits with our existing technology architecture,” Keefer added. “Most importantly, MARC’s configuration capabilities provide the flexibility we need to meet our customer's current and future needs while MARC Global Services implementation services will have us up and running quickly.”

“NSK purchased a new facility without a system currently installed; therefore they need to be operating at full fulfillment capacity very quickly,” pointed out Bob Kennedy, vice president and general manager for MARC’s in the Americas. He added that his company can deliver a first-time implementation project in three to six months--a greatly reduced installation period from the industry standard of nine to 12 months.

Keefer said NSK chose MARC based on its ability to implement a “configuration ready” system with enhanced configuration tools to speed implementation in any fulfillment environment. The MARC-Value Added Services module is to augment NSK’s current kitting and customer-specific labeling and packaging operations as well as the product’s interface with the Loftware solution-- a graphical tool for off-line barcode labeling and document design. The agreement covers implementation and the software license.

For more information, contact www.nsk.com and www.marcgs.com.