CORY To Deliver Innovative "Warehouse on Wheels" Service

Furniture World Magazine

Responding to the needs of furniture retailers nationwide for added delivery efficiencies and cost savings, CORY Home Delivery announced that it has initiated a strategic three-way partnership with Demountable Concepts, Inc, headquartered in Glassboro, NJ and Penske Truck Leasing, headquartered in Reading, PA. The new demountable service alliance enables CORY to shave delivery time and money from the bottom line for retailers. Announcing the new service that streamlines regional home delivery operations is Joseph Cory, Jr., Vice President of Marketing for CORY Home Delivery Service, based in Secaucus, NJ. “The Internet and manufacturing abroad are rendering traditional business models obsolete. Products that cannot be easily returned must arrive from central locations damage-free, and customers are no longer willing to wait six weeks for delivery. Demountable service is a fascinating concept utilizing interchangeable truck body systems that empowers retailers to expand delivery area, increase profitability, decrease costs, and improve efficiency,” he says. The CORY relationship with Demountable Concepts (www.demount.com) and Penske (www.pensketruckleasing.com) is a turn-key solution for retailers, he adds. It seamlessly combines premier delivery service by CORY with engineered fleet equipment by Demountable Concepts and trucks provided and maintained by Penske Truck Leasing without the retailer spending unnecessary capital to open remote cross docks or purchase new tractors or delivery trucks. “For retailers today, operational challenges can be daunting. For those with locations hundreds of miles apart, it can be even more so. The demountable system, which expands the radius for efficient regional delivery from 100 to 300 miles, is a boon for stores in cities nationwide serving outlying areas,” Cory says. He cites the new high-end Younkers Furniture Gallery in Green Bay, Wisconsin, opened recently by the Bon-Ton Stores and serviced by their distribution center in Naperville, Illinois, as a case in point. Bon-Ton needed to service Younkers, 225 miles away from its Naperville distribution center, he explains. A cross dock operation was out of the question because of the extra handling and the potential for damage. Every piece must be removed from packaging, inspected and “deluxed” prior to shipping. Moreover, capitalizing on the Illinois warehouse and inventory to service the outlying store was a must. The essentials of the “Warehouse on Wheels“ delivery system are two pieces of equipment: a convertible base frame equipped with legs that fold underneath for truck body transport and unfold during free-standing storage ― and a chassis-lift system installed onto pre-existing or new 26-foot “swap” body trucks. For Bon-Ton, the process begins with two bodies that are loaded at Naperville with furniture and transported overnight on a semi-trailer to Green Bay. There they are demounted or taken off the semi and left free-standing on their own support system in the local Penske Truck Leasing yard, and the semi returns to Naperville with empty bodies from the previous day ― to come back fully loaded again the next evening. First thing next morning, local driver teams quickly mount the free-standing bodies to 26-foot straight body trucks and proceed with deliveries. “Revolutionizing local furniture delivery, the demountable concept is right on the money for retailers trending toward centralized warehousing to serve outlying markets,” says Cory, noting several advantages to the system based on cost-effective inventory process control and expansion capabilities. Most retailers can cover a 100-mile daily delivery radius from a central location efficiently, but it becomes less efficient the further out you go, he explains. Allowing retailers to expand delivery arenas to 300 miles while controlling inventory, without adding space and employees, demountable service eliminates the need to open regional warehouses or cross docks to serve remote markets. With demountable service, for example, a distribution center in central New Jersey can easily serve markets from Boston to Washington, D.C., enabling a retailer to cover the five major cities of the Northeast from one location. With the ability to load two truck bodies standing one in front of the other at once to increase warehouse efficiency and dock door availability, the demountable system eliminates double product handling ― and the need to use hard-to-come-by Class A CDL drivers. Local drivers spend their time delivering product instead of loading trucks and operate in areas they are familiar with. “Demountable service is growing in popularity among furniture retailers,” says Demountable Concepts president Rustin Cassway. “What we do gives CORY the ability to service retailers out of one warehouse. The result is improved delivery and cost savings for the customer.” Providing such strategic capabilities to retailers is clearly a win for the three partners in the CORY/Demountable/Penske alliance, concludes Joe Cory, Jr. “Because the service allows for expanding delivery areas and improving efficiency ― a ‘win’ for retailers is also in order.” About Cory: One of the oldest and largest specialized home delivery carriers in America, CORY Home Delivery, founded by Joseph Cory in 1934, today is in its third generation of family management and ownership. Based in Secaucus, New Jersey, the company serves many of the top 100 furniture, appliance, and electronics retailers in the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. The company dispatches a modern fleet of 450 customized vehicles daily delivering more than $2.1 billion of merchandise to more than 1.6 million consumers annually. For more information, call Patrick Cory at 201-795-1000, or visit corycompanies.com.