As mentioned last month, many excellent suppliers applied for USA’s annual Continuous Improvement (CI) Award, and though we couldn’t give awards to all of these suppliers, we wanted to. This article is the second in a series of articles spotlighting our Continuous Improvement award finalists and the innovative things they are doing in the nuclear industry and for the world.

Graybar Electric is no stranger to Continuous Improvement. As a winner of the USA CI Award in 2011, they know that if you’re coasting, you’re going downhill, and so they strive to keep getting better and better.

This effort has been recognized time and again. In May of 2013 Graybar was named “the Greenest of the Green” among National Association of Electrical Distributors (NAED) member companies.

Just a few months later USA member Detroit Edison awarded Graybar their Cost Savings award, which they presented at the DTE supplier conference. DTE Supply Chain Manager Kathrine Horan stated, “Graybar has been providing key support to Fermi for many years. The Graybar Team can consistently be counted on to respond in a timely fashion with accurate status. We do not have to spend time and energy tracking down late deliveries or lost shipments. This frees up DTE personnel to be more productive and better support the plant. These savings are crucial to DTE’s continued success.”

So what has Graybar been doing to earn all these accolades? To start off, they don’t just sell CFLs and energy-efficient lighting fixtures, they work within their own company to protect the environment. Internal efforts to reuse and recycle materials have resulted in a 70% landfill diversion rate at their Corporate Facilities. They offer a RecyclePak program to assist their customers with the proper recycling and disposal of lamps, ballasts and batteries. And their state of the art, 186,000 square foot distribution center in Springfield, Missouri doesn’t need any climate controls, since it’s located underground in a natural limestone cave.

Graybar’s latest project, the Tucson facility, was built to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver specifications, and serves as a pilot to enable Graybar to test energy-efficiency and profitability. The Tucson building features solar panels, energy efficient T5 lighting throughout, storm water design, water-efficient landscaping, optimization of energy performance equipment, low-emitting materials, daylight harvesting dimming systems and an electric vehicle charging station. The utilization of energy-efficient lighting and equipment, including Energy Star products, will ultimately reduce Graybar’s electric and utility bills, which will lower operating expenses.

Graybar also continues to improve their business processes by implementing new technology. Most recently, Graybar has improved their reliability of delivery through the “Graybar Delivery Advantage”. In this process, Graybar truck drivers scan the truck deliveries directly into SAP using their mobile phones. The system generates the truck manifest, which can be accessed by Graybar Customer Service Representatives (CSRs). CSRs can see the routes and which deliveries are loaded on each truck. They can then use this information to send updates and answer customer questions without having to contact the warehouse or the driver to find out the status of an order that is out for delivery. This program saves an estimated $2.5 million annually in time savings and provides Graybar branch locations with the data to take customer service to the next level.

This commitment to continually improving their business processes and decreasing their environmental footprint is just one of the many reasons USA is proud to call Graybar Electric a USA Supplier-Partner.

Graybar’s 186,000 square foot distribution center in Springfield, Missouri is located underground in a natural limestone cave.

Graybar’s Tucson facility is built to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver specifications