|
Save
25% on our special introductory offer.
Subscribe today for only $14.99 per year.
|
|
|
 |
| industry profile
Any
Day, Any Time
By offering 13,000 different building products, chances are Ashley Aluminum
has what you need when you need it.
|
HP: Please give a brief description of your company and its history.
Dave Foushee, Vice President of Sales and Business
Development:
Ashley started out in Tampa in 1960 as a small, one-branch operation specializing
in building materials for pool and patio enclosures—extrusions, screens
and the like—and a few years later we expanded to a second branch located
in Largo, FL, that specialized in manufacturing roofing pans.
Florida was really booming at the time, so it was a logical progression
for us to open more branches up and down the west coast and then over on
the east coast of Florida as we moved into the 1970s. At the time, all of
our branches were set up as both distributors and manufacturers of building
products, and we’ve continued with that operating strategy to this
day.
Our customers are primarily building contractors and subcontractors. Like
most distributors serving this market segment, your customers come to you
one day and ask if you can do this or get that for them, so as we moved
into the 1980s we began to expand our product mix to include more diverse
aluminum building products such as soffit, drip edge and fascia. We then
started a branch that specialized in industrial metals distribution for
all types of manufacturers, and at the time we also had another facility
in Fort Lauderdale that specialized in design and manufacture of storefront
windows and doors.
We had and still have a pretty diverse product mix to serve our customers,
and we kept up the growth and diversification by asking, “What are
all the different things you can do with aluminum?”
The ’80s and ’90s were periods of tremendous growth for Ashley.
We went from being a local company serving Florida to a regional distributor
with branches in 11 states throughout the southeast and Texas. We went from
a private company to a public company, back to private and then back to
public again, and then in 2000 we again went back to being a private company.
Today we are a part of Guardian Industries, specifically the Guardian Building
Products Group—the largest wholesale building products distributor
in North America. The last branch Ashley opened was number 71 in Ft. Mill,
SC, to serve the Charlotte regional area, and that brings us up to about
900,000 square feet of manufacturing and distribution space.
While we have certainly changed and grown over the years our business purpose
has remained focused on three things: service, service and more service.
We like to think we are pretty good at what we do, but our 400 employees
are always striving to do what we do better.
HP: How does Ashley support the hurricane protection market?
Foushee: Hurricane protection did not start out to be a significant
part of our business until Hurricane Andrew, but Andrew obviously changed
a lot of things in Florida.
We started out by providing our customers a line of standard aluminum storm
panels tolled by another manufacturer, but quickly discovered that our customers
in this market require another level of service: I-need-it-this-afternoon
service. We were used to providing this level of service to our roofing
panel customers, but recognized that if we were going to get there for storm
protection we had to be in the business of manufacturing products ourselves.
So, we made some substantial investments in machinery and set up a two-pronged
distribution network to serve our customers.
We have storm panel tolling machinery in place at our main manufacturing
facility in Tampa where we fabricate panels in both standard and custom
lengths. If time is not an issue we can turn around an order and get it
anywhere within Florida in a matter of days. Where time is more critical,
we have set up storm panel cut and punch machines at nine of our main branch
locations strategically located around Florida, and they literally can get
a custom order done in a few hours. They can do this by taking a 20-foot
panel manufactured here in Tampa—which all of our main branches keep
in stock—and cutting it down into any length panel the customer may
need.
Of course, all of the panel products we offer, which include aluminum, galvanized
steel and polycarbonate materials, are tested and certified to meet every
statewide code requirement. Our branches also stock pre-cut storm panels
in a variety of lengths based upon common window sizes in their particular
market areas.
A little later we concluded that we could not adequately serve our customers
with storm panels alone, so we expanded our product mix in the late ’90s
to include lines of accordion, roll-up, Bahama and Colonial shutters. Our
niche in this market used to be to stock and sell extrusions and components
for approved shutter systems to manufacturers of accordion, roll-up and
Bahama shutters. We still do this, but in the recent past we expanded this
focus when we initiated design and development of our own accordion shutter
system.
Our system, which we plan to roll out under the trademark International
Accordion Shutter, successfully completed all required testing and is currently
being evaluated by the folks in Dade County. We also distribute a variety
of impact-resistant window and door products, but we are not engaged in
any manufacturing activities in this area.
HP: Who are your customers, and what areas of the country do you service?
Foushee: Wow. It’s hard to come
up with a short answer to that question because our customer base is so
broad. I’d have to say that the majority of our customers have some
relationship to the building and construction industry as a contractor or
subcontractor. Our building product mix includes virtually everything you
would need to construct or finish the inside or outside of a dwelling, so
contractors and subs who do those sorts of things are our customers.
Our industrial customers are primarily manufacturers of some metal product—everything
from signs to vehicles, to machinery, boats and even satellite communication
vehicles to name a few. In the last couple of years we internally developed
a new Technical Services Division to provide engineering and technical consulting
services for the industry, and we brought some completely new customers
to our door: architects, other engineers, developers and some government
agencies. Believe me, the list is pretty broad.
Ashley primarily serves a regional area: the southeastern United States
and going as far west as Texas. At the same time, one of the really interesting
things about being part of one of the largest private multi-national companies
in the world, and the largest wholesale building products distributor in
North America, is coming to appreciate that our markets are really unlimited.
We have some things in the works with other parts of the Guardian Building
Products Group where they are looking at distributing some products we manufacture
and we are looking at distributing some products they manufacture.
Here in Florida, Ashley has 40 distribution centers to serve every square
inch of the state.
HP: What do you believe distinguishes Ashley from its competitors?
Foushee: Our employees, and the one-stop level of service we
are capable of providing for our customers.
When you look at Ashley and our competitors, we all distribute similar products
and serve pretty much the same customers. We carry over 13,000 different
building products at last count, so we believe our product mix may be a
little bit deeper and a little bit broader than most of our competitors.
We want our customers to be able to come in any day at any time and get
everything they need to complete their jobs at one time. One-stop shopping.
If a customer calls in at 5 p.m. and needs a job site delivery the next
day at 7 a.m. we want to be able to service him.
The only way you can manage this is by having inventory breath and depth—we
stock it so our customers do not have to—and by having excellent employees
who believe in and are capable of fulfilling our service mission. We are
very fortunate to have both.
I think another thing that is beginning to distinguish us is our vertical
integration as a company. More than 20 percent of the products we sell to
our customers are also manufactured by us, so—and especially over the
last few years—we’ve grown from being mostly a distributor of
building products to being a manufacturer and distributor of building products.
I also think our Technical Services Division provides our customers an additional
dimension of service for their project requirements. Building codes and
requirements in Florida have been evolving over the last few years and it
has been difficult for many of our customers to keep up with some of the
changes being implemented by their local building departments.
Our Technical Services Department is in business to help our customers in
this area. For example, a customer may come to us with his concept for a
custom pool cage that has literally been scratched out on the back of a
napkin. Technical Services can take that concept and flesh it out into a
detailed design and materials list, and provide a set of sealed engineering
drawings. The customer is assured that the finished design meets all applicable
building codes, and he can also use the sealed drawing package to obtain
a permit from his local building department.
We also conduct technical and continuing education seminars around the state
about once every quarter on topics of interest to most everyone in the building
construction industry. Had one not too long ago specifically on the topic
of storm protection.
Ashley Aluminum, LLC
5120 West Clifton Street
Tampa, FL 33634
(800) 749-4067
fax: (813) 884-0255
e-mail: davidfoushee@GuardX.com |
|
 |
|
|
