News and Press Releases

Not A Basket Case (published in the MHEDA Journal)

A large tier one automotive supplier in Maiden, North Carolina, was having issues with its wire mesh baskets. It was storing steel forgings for automobile drive trains and a standard GM5131 basket was simply too large. Specifically, the baskets were too tall, which led to the company’s supplier overfilling the basket with forgings and putting more weight in them than the customer’s equipment could handle.

Stumped, the customer called its material handling distributor, Wes-Co Enterprises (Granite Falls, NC), to determine a solution. Wes-Co Owner Jamie Hagerty went to the facility and pitched a solution. The customer would need a custom wire basket that could support up to 2,000 pounds without being overfilled. Hagerty immediately suggested a Nashville Wire Products solution to the customer.

“Nashville Wire is the only wire basket I would put in my portfolio, from a confidence standpoint,” Hagerty says. “They’re so easy to work with and the product is the best quality I have ever seen from a safety standpoint.”

Safety was a major selling point on this project. The customer was considering two different types of storage solutions. Hagerty pointed out that Nashville Wire baskets have a drop gate with a helix, whereas the competitor’s used pins on the gate.

“They were curious about what would happen if the basket crumpled under the weight,” Hagerty says. “I explained that the helix would pre vent the gate from falling off. The pins could snap and the gate could fall off, which could damage the load. The helix would prevent that from happening.”

Hagerty called Twaka Tyus, estimation engineer at Nashville Wire Products, to explain the situation. “Twaka was like Superman through out this process,” Hagerty says. “He quoted the custom size that we came up with and drew up the engineered drawings for it. He even had the engineering department build a prototype that the customer could sample prior to purchase.”

This ended up being prescient, as the customer realized that he had miscalculated a portion of the manufacturing process and therefore the prototype baskets would be too tall. For some, this could have been a major hurdle, but Hagerty simply called Twaka and informed him of the need for a slightly shorter basket.

“He turned the prototype around within a week,” Hagerty says. “It was unbelievable.”

After seeing the prototype and learning about the ROI that the Nashville Wire solution offered, the customer was blown away by the custom solution and put in an order for more than $100,000 of custom wire containers. The containers measured 48 in. x 40 in. x 18 in. “As a distributor, it’s my job to find suppliers that I can work with and get a quick response from,” Hagerty says. “Getting something turned around this quickly is unheard of. Nashville Wire has been an indispensible partner to us.”

DISTRIBUTOR: Wes Co Enterprises
SUPPLIER: Nashville Wire Products
Our Mission:
To provide a customer the ability to purchase all of their packaging needs from one supplier that can give them the service that they expect.