An employee-driven culture of safety and quality customer service has distinguished a Richland distribution center with a coveted safety award.

Ferguson, a building supply wholesaler at 2501 Battelle Blvd., recently was named Ferguson’s Regional Distribution Center of the Year.

The Newport News, Virginia-based company has nine regional distribution centers, including the one in Richland, which serves Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Utah and Alaska. It’s been operating since 2003.

Jack Flett, the Richland distribution center’s general manager, attributes the win to an employee-driven safety culture, good customer service and low turnover. 

In late October, the center had gone 648 days, or 22 months, without reportable injuries. 

While Flett said it’s highly competitive among the handful of distribution centers to receive the award, “this whole building is just powered by phenomenal associates. We’ve definitely come very close the last few years to getting it.”

Ferguson began in 1953 as a plumbing wholesaler, but has expanded to cover HVAC, fire systems and more. The company has 37,000 associates in 1,700 locations across the country and a sister company, Wolseley, in Canada.

Just over 90 employees work at the 725,000-square-foot distribution center in Richland.

The Richland center won the award twice before: in 2008-09 and in 2013-14. 

Parts supplier

Ferguson supports contractors, often plumbing or dual plumbing and HVAC contractors. The company’s parts are used in plumbing for new housing developments as well as commercial and industrial projects, including food processing plants, dams, nuclear power plants and data centers.

The company also has a maintenance supply business to dispense dish soap, toilet paper, light fixtures and more to churches, schools, resorts and other facilities.

Ferguson sometimes does installations, like refrigerators in custom homes or water heaters in commercial buildings. 

The regional distribution center receives truckloads of materials from manufacturers and stores them, then distributes them to Ferguson’s branch stores or directly to larger projects. 

There are two branch stores in the Tri-Cities: an HVAC location at 501 N. Quay St., #101, Kennewick, near Vista Field, and one at 1130 W. Washington St., Pasco.

Each day, the Richland distribution center ships out about 120 less-than-truckload, or LTL, shipments a day, or about 1,200 to 1,500 parcels, and 20 truckloads a day, serving roughly 60 stores. LTLs refer to freight that doesn’t require a full truckload.

The full truck loads and some of the LTL shipments go to Ferguson’s stores to replenish their inventory, while other LTL shipments go directly to customers.

The majority of Ferguson’s customers, about 95%, are professional, Flett said, while 5% are homeowners. The distribution center runs a will-call counter, a sort of walk-up store, on one end of the building where customers can buy the most commonly used items.  

Warehouse safety

When products arrive at Ferguson’s Richland distribution center, employees ready them for shipments, moving them into storage and onto pallets using forklifts. The employees use a headset for the “pick” process to tell them where in the warehouse to go and how many parts to collect, Flett said. 

The parts could be anything from a toilet or a stove to a tiny metal fitting.

When employees drive through the aisles on forklifts, there are several safety measures in place. Signs at each aisle indicate which direction traffic should flow, and the forklifts shine a blue light several feet in front of them as a visual cue. Employees also honk at the intersections so they can be heard coming as well.

The distribution center works to ensure new hires know how to be safe in the building, as well as offering annual forklift trainings. Each week, employees walk the building to make sure there are no potential hazards, and there’s an associate-led safety committee, as well as safety events throughout the year.

“It’s definitely the associates’ award. They stepped up,” Flett said. “ … It’s the associates’ pride and dedication each and every day that they bring to work. Definitely they’re the driving force behind the success.”