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Logistics Provider |
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Built on Service, Strong as Steel |
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Over 70 Years in Transportation and Logistics |
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From the snowy Appalachian Mountains in Western Pennsylvania to the sunny
beaches of Ft. Lauderdale, W. C. McQuaide, Inc. has facilities to provide
logistics services to customers in the steel industry, the yachting business,
beverage and food, and many more. |
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" We’re a one-stop shop. We don’t just load and unload. We offer warehousing,
packaging, distribution, and Customs services. " |
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Rick McQuaide, Vice President Business Development and Logistics |
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www.mcquaide.com |
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Logistics Provider |
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Magaya WMS, Magaya Supply Chain Solution |
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W. C. McQuaide, Inc. has 300 employees, a trucking division, multiple
warehouses, and offers complete logistics services to their customers. They own
warehouses in Pennsylvania and in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and a CFS in Port
Everglades. They also offer Customs services, packaging, light assembly, cross
docking, and inventory management. |
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In the W. C. McQuaide, Inc. warehouses in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, huge square
stacks of beverage cans rise like city blocks inside the warehouse with the
twinkle and gleam of nighttime skyscrapers.
 Out in the yard, windmill blades over 144 feet long are loaded onto specialty
trailers with rear-steerable axles and readied for transport to a wind farm in
state or across the country.
All items great and small – the family and staff of W. C. McQuaide, Inc. have
experience transporting and storing it all. They started hauling steel in 1936,
before the modern road system was built. Construction of the Pennsylvania
Turnpike didn’t begin until 1937 and wasn’t completed until the 1950s. As the
transportation industry changed over the years, so did McQuaide. The company
expanded into general freight and the LTL trucking business. Before the trucking
industry was deregulated in the 1980s, McQuaide was one of first companies to
have hauling rights to all points in Pennsylvania. If haulers did not have
authority to carry cargo to certain cities, they could not book customers for
those destinations. “With that authority and an overnight trucking service, we
experienced a period of rapid growth,” said Rick McQuaide, Vice President of
Business Development and Logistics. “After the trucking industry was
deregulated, LTL trucking prices became cutthroat so we returned to our origins
in truckload hauling.”
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In the 1970s, W. C. McQuaide, Inc. added warehousing and gained more customers
and additional warehouses. Rick McQuaide is the third-generation of family to
work at the business his grandfather started. Talking about their warehousing
operations in Pennsylvania, Mr. McQuaide said, “We partner with manufacturers to
manage raw materials and finished goods. With the raw materials, we help the
companies manage their production line by offering Just-in-Time service for
manufacturers who have little or no warehouse space. We provide the customer
with the advantage of renting and paying only for the space they need when they
need it. Most manufacturers have peaks and valleys in their seasons, so if they
need 50,000 square feet of space now, we have it. If in a few months they need
only 10,000 square feet, they only pay for 10,000.”
“We manage multiple accounts under one roof, and that’s how we save our
customers money. We can offer cost savings to our customers because we have the
equipment such as forklifts that are used for all the cargo items, one computer
system, and one manager oversees the operations. Then the name of the game for
us is to keep our warehouses full and keep everyone busy throughout the year.”
W.C. McQuaide Inc. also manages the distribution of finished goods. For example,
Pepsi uses McQuaide’s warehouse to store empty cans for different flavors of
sodas. “We handle 600 million cans through our facility in a year,” Mr. McQuaide
said. “Suppliers deliver the empty cans to our warehouse, and we deliver them to
the nearby bottling facility as Pepsi needs them.”
Pepsi sends McQuaide orders for daily deliveries of cans to meet specific
production schedules. McQuaide can quickly adapt to changes in production
schedules ensuring “Just in Time Delivery”. “With us housing the cans, Pepsi can
keep their production steady,” Mr. McQuaide explained. “We run a 24-hour shuttle
of empty cans to fill requests such as three loads of Diet Pepsi cans in lane 7
and two loads of Mountain Dew cans in lane 5.” McQuaide coordinates inventory
levels of raw materials with suppliers of Pepsi to meet peak demands for
holidays such as the Fourth of July, Memorial Day, Labor Day, and others.
Another service W.C. McQuaide Inc. offers is packaging. One of their customers
sells safety products to retail outlets such as Home Depot, Lowe’s, and other
hardware stores. The items such as orange cones are shipped to McQuaide’s
warehouse in bulk. “Here at the warehouse, we place the cones in individual
packages. This saves on shipping costs as the items are transported from
overseas because you can fit a larger quantity in bulk in a container than you
could if each item were individually packaged.” The warehouse has an automated
labeling system that labels the packages for compliance and UPS shipping for
retail distribution based on their customer’s orders.
 An example of the oversized cargo W.C. McQuaide Inc. transports is the blades
for windmill turbines. A local manufacturing facility builds the blades that
will be used in wind farms to create renewable energy. McQuaide coordinates the
hauling both locally and as far as California. “Because the blades are
oversized, we have to plan the route in advance and get permits from each state.
We have escort trucks, but some states require police escorts, too. Our fleet
includes trucks that have steering in the rear which enables the vehicle to turn
on narrow roads. Otherwise, we’d be limited to roads wide enough to make the
turns. So we can offer our customer more options. We also store blades in our
yard because winter is not the best time to ship this kind of cargo due to snow
and ice on the roads.”
W.C. McQuaide Inc. also hauls truckload quantities of items such as pet foods
for Del Monte, beer for Iron City and Anheuser-Busch, and wire coils from
Johnstown Wire Technologies.
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With the
reduction in manufacturing in the US, McQuaide looked for other avenues to
expand its business. The company wanted to add import and export services, so
they purchased a Container Freight Station (CFS) and warehousing operation in
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida in 2009. To create economies of scale, McQuaide operates
all the properties of the new division as one. The operation, Frazer McQuaide
Warehousing and Logistics, has a warehouse in Pompano Beach and another
warehouse operating as Challenge Warehousing in the Port 95 commerce park, a
block from the Ft. Lauderdale International Airport, making it easy to return
containers to Port Everglades. Both facilities service Port Everglades and the
Port of Miami. The Ft. Lauderdale facilities are bonded and approved by U.S.
Custom’s General Order, and CTPAT verified. Many of McQuaide’s Florida customers
are importers, exporters, and freight forwarders.
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When McQuaide bought the Ft. Lauderdale facility, they decided to install the
Magaya Supply Chain Solution and Magaya Warehouse Management System (Magaya
WMS). Mr. McQuaide was one of the people involved in making the software choice.
“We bought Magaya because it saved us from having to reprogram or write the
software we’re using in the Pennsylvania facilities. Magaya made sense for us
because it is already set up and ready to use. It has the Bill of Lading
documents we need and a warehouse management system so we can assign locations
in the warehouse and put items away in those locations. One of the nicest things
about the software is the ability to give our customers visible access to their
inventory online in real time. That was a big item for us.”
“Unlike other software which takes a lot of time and costs hundreds of thousands
of dollars to get set up, Magaya was a very cost-effective solution. The other
bonus we like is the ability to generate a quick invoice based on the
information in the Magaya system.”
“We also like the fact that Magaya has a network of users, so when you work with
a freight forwarder who is also using Magaya software, it is very easy to
transfer information between the two.”
When they implemented Magaya software, McQuaide continued to run their old
system to check that everything was correct. “We had one of our IT people take a
training class to learn Magaya software and then work with our managers.” The
inventory reports were also important. “We matched the inventory in our old
system, did physical counts, and compared the results with the Magaya software.
Now we rely solely on Magaya in the Ft. Lauderdale facilities. We also use it
for new customers in Pennsylvania.”
The Ft. Lauderdale facility handles cargo for the yachting and cruise
industries, retail stores, drums of specialty oils, nails, phone books, frozen
lobster, cars, and boats. Ft. Lauderdale is a major boat building location and
has the nicknames “Yachting Capital of the World” and the “Venice of America”.
McQuaide Inc. ships and manages inventory of parts used in the assembly of the
yachts and boats.
McQuaide uses Magaya software to create Warehouse Receipts (WR), inventory
items, and locations. They enter rates per customer and generate invoices.
McQuaide has customized some documents by adding some policy statements to WRs
and Bills of Lading. “We like that we can choose not to display some charges on
certain documents, but the charges are still in the system.”
McQuaide also transfers cargo from one warehouse to another using the Cargo
Movements feature in Magaya software. They deconsolidate, return the container,
and store items so the customer can defer duty payment until the items are sold,
and pick and pack items. “We manage cargo for our customers who are freight
forwarders who import items for retailers. We unload it for them, store, and
ship it when they need it.”
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McQuaide is also in the final stages of certifying their Ft. Lauderdale
warehouse in the Port 95 commerce park under the TSA Cargo Screening Facility
program. They also have staff certified to offer Customs and bonding services.
“We’re a one-stop shop. We keep adding services. We don’t just load and unload;
we can file Customs documents, pack items and label them with an automatic
labeling system,” Mr. McQuaide said. His grandfather’s motto, “Service Right the
First Time” is still a key principle for the company as it grows.
“We like to keep up with technology to stay competitive. The software offers us
all the features the more expensive ones have. It was easier than buying a
custom program that requires spending lots of money before you even get to use
it. The decision to use Magaya was an easy one. The more we learn about it, the
more we like it.”
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