When car maker Tesla opened an assembly plant near Austin, Texas, it wanted key suppliers to establish a nearby warehouse in Austin, Texas to minimize supply line disruptions. One of these suppliers, a multi-billion dollar maker of plastic parts for cars, leaned on Dimerco Express Group to find and start an inbound warehouse near the Tesla factory – a solution that quickly evolved from pallet-in, pallet-out warehousing to complex 3PL value-added services. 

The product journey starts in Inland China and ends in Central Texas. Dimerco manages door-to-door transport, including plant pickup in China, ocean shipping from Ningbo, China to Houston, Texas and drayage to the staging warehouse in Austin near the auto plant. Container volumes can range from 20 to 90 containers a week.   

The solution includes a light manufacturing process that combines multiple plastic pieces (raw material) into a finished SKU. The Austin warehouse process includes a mix of humans, who load products at the start and perform QC at the end, and robots, which place products precisely, apply glue, and combine pieces into a single unit. 

Dimerco’s auto industry customer had a vision for creating finished parts further downstream, and Dimerco’s team made it happen.  According to Michael Wagner, Dimerco’s President of Service Logistics, “Most 3PLs are not going to take on this kind of work. It’s really more of a manufacturing function, with a near-zero tolerance for mistakes.”  

As a result of the solution, Dimerco’s customer has reduced its total costs, improved quality, and provided a more reliable supply line into Tesla’s gigafactory. By having access to local inventory and a built-in quality assurance team – Tesla now has a supply chain that’s far more agile with a reduced risk of disruptions.