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• McDuffie Box Company more than manufacturing
By Wayne Parham
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| Chris Mercer, owner, stands next to part of a box that has been die cut to meet a customer’s specifications. Photo by Wayne Parham. |
McDuffie Box Company serves customers large and small, from Lithonia to Augusta and sometimes as far away as Ohio.
“We serve anybody that needs a box,” said Chris Mercer, owner and founder of the company.
Mercer noted that McDuffie Box provides services to small mom and pop businesses all the way up to companies that purchase as much as $850,000 a year from the Thomson manufacturer.
According to Mercer, McDuffie Box distinguishes itself within its industry in a number of ways, such as producing smaller quantities and warehousing and managing inventory for customers.
Most box companies do not warehouse or manage inventory at all, but for Mercer it is just another way his company provides top-notch customer service.
“It is just a favor to the customer,” he said.
McDuffie Box will try to keep a 60-day cycle on the products they warehouse, but seasonally it may vary.
Mercer said that sometimes his driver will deliver boxes to a customer, then have to haul them back to Thomson, then later return them to the customer by the end of the week. But by warehousing for the customer, McDuffie Box can help keep costs down for those clients. It also frees up floor space at a customer’s facility. One byproduct of warehousing is that McDuffie Box has developed a keen sense of what the customer needs and when.
“Usually we get to know as much or more about what they need than they know themselves,” said Mercer. “We get to know more about how many boxes they use, and which ones, than they do sometimes.”
The giant McDuffie Box building has almost 50 percent dedicated to box manufacturing and close to 50 percent set aside for warehousing. Mercer would like to expand the business and said it would be no problem to find the floor space for warehousing increased inventory, if the footprint of his manufacturing operation grows.
To read more on this story, see the Wed., Jan. 25, edition of The McDuffie Progress.
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