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| This was the culmination of Gene's career. He was interested in finding a strategic acquirer, not just a financial acquirer. He wanted to see what he built to be not only perpetuated, but to be positioned to continue to grow. |
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What Do You Say?
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Previous Columns by
Cliff Holste |
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Dateline, April 20, 2015: - In a interview that Cliff Holste, Material Handling Editor for Supply Chain Digest had with Forte’s Tom Rentschler, VP Sales & Marketing , and Bob Babel, VP Engineering & Implementation, it was announced that Forte Industries had just been purchases by Swisslog.
Created 35 years ago by Gene Forte, the merger will allow Forte Industries to continue to operate from its Mason, Ohio, headquarters under its own name. While Gene will assist with the transition in an advisory role, Mr. A.K. Schultz, of Swisslog’s North American operation will assume day-to-day manage responsibilities.
Tom commented that – “this was the culmination of Gene’s career. He was interested in finding a strategic acquirer, not just a financial acquirer. He wanted to see what he built to be not only perpetuated, but to be positioned to continue to grow.”
As a consultant and design/build materials handling systems integrator, Forte Industries has been a pioneer and early leader. Bob provided two early examples, which as a former Forte employee I could relate to:
In 1996 Forte was contracted by Beiersdorf, Inc. to design and implement its first automated warehousing and order fulfillment distribution center located in Cincinnati, Ohio. In addition to a split case and full case semi-automated picking sortation shipping system, this state-of-art facility was one of the first DCs to be equipped with a super flat floor designed to support a Very-Narrow Aisle Turret truck operation.
In October of 1997, Forte was contracted by Totes-Isotoner to develop an innovated, industry-leading plan that would consolidate three non-mechanized DCs into a single, new semi-automated 450,000 sq. ft. facility located adjacent to the new Beiersdorf DC. To meet the heavy split case picking requirements, Forte designed a unique Automated Zone Picking system that offers significant benefits over traditional pick-and-pass methods and has since become a standard solution in the materials handling industry. Forte’s fast-track design/build approach allowed this green-field project to be completed in 10 months and just in time for the 1998 Christmas season.
Eighteen years later Forte continues to provide system support to both facilities to keep them running at peak performance and efficiency. Maintaining this type of long-term relationship with customers was and is extremely important to Gene Forte who stated: “I am enormously proud that a global systems integrator with the stellar reputation of Swisslog sees Forte as such a valuable addition to their team”.
Bill Leber, Swisslog’s director of business development and marketing said in a release: “Swisslog sells advanced automation systems such as AS/RS products in the global, top-tier market sector. By acquiring Forte, it gains a valuable presence in the semi-automated systems used by many mid-tier companies to ship smaller orders and meet the demands of omnichannel distribution.
At this time terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed.
For more information on Swisslog, visit www.swisslog.com/wds
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