Supply Chain Frontiers issue #38
Bottled water producer and supplier Niagara Bottling, LLC, has joined the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics (MIT CTL) Supply Chain Exchange. The company’s rapid expansion and focus on the efficiency of its supply chain were key factors in its decision to become the latest corporate member of the Exchange.
“We have seen explosive growth over the past eight years and have grown from a small, family-owned operation to the second-largest bottled water manufacturer in the United States,” says Ashley Dorna, Executive Vice President, Supply Chain, at Niagara. Established in 1963 and headquartered in Ontario, CA, the manufacturer has eight strategically located manufacturing facilities in the United States.
There are three primary drivers of Niagara’s success: vertical integration, innovations such as its eco-friendly bottle design, and high-speed manufacturing. The organization makes its own containers, a competitive advantage because the in-house manufacturing operation gives Niagara more control over its supply chain and helps to keep costs under control, explains Dorna. “This year, we will distribute close to 6 billion bottles and caps in the US marketplace,” he says.
Dorna describes Niagara’s supply chain as the “life line” that supports the organization’s successful business model. Water has become a relatively commoditized product so “the supply chain is where most of our costs exist,” he says. And as the manufacturer has expanded, “we have had to reinvent our supply chain multiple times.”
Niagara has done a lot of work to benchmark transportation processes and optimize the design of its distribution network, and this effort will continue as an Exchange partner. In addition, “we feel that partnering with an institution like MIT and getting more involved on the educational side will help us to drive savings in the supply chain and to recruit talent,” he explains. The relationship also gives Niagara access to MIT expertise in other critical areas such as materials science.
Exchange partners use MIT CTL as a common meeting ground where they share information, experiences, and opinions in a collaborative and collegial setting. Benefits include interaction with researchers on specific issues and privileged access to MIT CTL symposia, student recruiting, and communications programs. Niagara’s membership brings the number of Exchange partners to more than 40.
“Niagara is the kind of progressive, supply chain-oriented enterprise that can benefit hugely from participation in the Exchange, and we are looking forward to working with the organization,” says MIT CTL Executive Director Dr. Chris Caplice.
For more information on the MIT CTL Supply Chain Exchange, contact Bob Vaz, Manager, Corporate Outreach, at email: rvaz@mit.edu, or telephone: +1 617 253 5239.