The Dow Chemical Company and Menlo Worldwide Logistics have opened a new 134,000-square-foot warehousing and distribution operation in Bay City, Mich. The property recently underwent a major renovation and upgrade, which converted the building into a modern, energy-efficient, purpose-designed facility that will provide strategic warehousing and distribution services for Dow Wolff Cellulosics products manufactured at Dow Michigan Operations in Midland, Mich.
The Bay City facility created six new local jobs with Menlo and will provide a variety of inventory management, warehousing and fulfillment services, including receipt, put-away, storage and shipping of cellulose products, which are packaged in drums, bags and supersacks. The Dow Wolff Cellulosics products are used in several applications, including pharmaceutical, food and building materials.
Concurrent with the opening of the new facility, Dow and Menlo also designed a new transportation management program for inbound and outbound freight shipments. Previously, 53-foot semi-trucks would haul product from Midland to an existing Menlo warehouse at Grove City, Ohio. Under the new program, Bay City will receive inbound shipments directly from Dow’s nearby Midland plant and will provide fulfillment of orders direct to customers.
By strategically establishing the new Bay City distribution center, and re-engineering its transportation network to reduce costs and increase direct-to-customer shipping, Menlo and Dow have eliminated nearly 450 interstate trucking moves, representing some 130,000 miles annually. In addition to saving wear and tear on highway infrastructure, the re-engineered solution is projected to conserve annually some 20,400 gallons of diesel fuel, which eliminates nearly 460,000 pounds of CO2 emissions from being introduced into the environment. The carbon footprint reduction is the equivalent to removing about 40 cars from the nation’s highways.
