Why use an Onsite? It's a dedicated resource for YOUR facilities

June 6, 2023
By Brian St. Hilaire | VP of Fastenal Solutions

Three big questions

1. How is the supplier investing in us?
2. What ideas and solutions are they bringing to our organization?
3. How can they help us create value and widen our competitive moat?

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If you’re asking these types of big-picture questions, you’re not alone. From global manufacturers to state universities, organizations are viewing industrial supplies through a broader lens, one that transcends a narrow focus on cost and fulfillment-related KPIs. In turn, they’re challenging their suppliers to bring more to the table – more investment, more integration, more innovation.
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At Fastenal, this call for “more” is increasingly being answered with an Onsite solution, a partnership approach to strengthen the supply chain and raise the bar for operational excellence.
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First things first: What is an Onsite?

An Onsite is a Fastenal business unit created for, dedicated to, and typically located within a single facility or campus. It includes full-time Fastenal staff to fulfill daily needs, spearhead special projects, and provide crib management and VMI services. It also includes an investment (by Fastenal) in inventory, technology, subject matter experts, and value-added services – all geared to integrate with the organization’s unique processes, culture, needs, and goals.
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How does this model create value?

Before we can answer that question, we need to flip it around: How do you define value? What’s important to you and what are you wanting to achieve as an organization? This is the starting point. From there, we can analyze your current supply processes, present a set of solutions to achieve your desired “future state,” and collaboratively define goals, KPIs, and checkpoints to chart a path forward.

That said, a certain degree of value creation is baked into the model. When we absorb supply-related tasks, touches, and burdens, that’s labor and capital you can redirect toward improvements and growth. When we provide best-in-class material management, logistics, and technology, it helps to fuel productive growth.

Driving five areas of improvement

1. Communication: The Fastenal Onsite team doesn’t just fill orders, bins, and machines. They become experts in your processes and products. They interact with your personnel every day, soaking in tribal knowledge and staying in sync with changing needs. They share ideas during team meetings and kaizen events, and provide solutions to capture and share data. As an extension of your team, they’re immediately accessible, continually collaborating and adapting, and always working on the next project to improve the program.
   
   
2. Efficiency: A primary goal is to help you become more resource-efficient, both within your operation and across the supply chain. This shines through in terms of productivity (with fewer touches, steps, delays, and distractions from core activities). It also shines through in financial terms (with a reduction in assets, consumption, rush orders, rogue spend, and administrative and transportation costs). There’s an environmental impact as well: Efficient category and inventory planning promotes less material waste and, by extension, lower emissions.
   
   
3. Quality: A more efficient supply process unlocks energy to focus on quality – more time on task, more time for process improvements. In addition, we can pull in subject matter experts to assist with quality improvement initiatives, including Lean Six Sigma specialists and degreed engineers specializing in fastener applications. You can also tap Fastenal’s manufacturing and industrial services teams to produce custom solutions that enhance quality in your processes and end products.
   
   
4. Innovation: Each Onsite is one of a kind, but all are part of the same network of 1,700+ programs spanning the planet. This footprint feeds ever-expanding institutional knowledge. We know what world-class programs look like at organizations that fit similar profiles, and we’re able to pull from the best ideas in the global marketplace to provide solutions. The Onsite program becomes a pipeline to the latest innovations in areas like automated supply, IoT, and data analytics, accelerating your digital transformation with minimal cost and risk.
   
   
5. Resiliency: With an Onsite partnership, we provide end-to-end supply chain management for a vast scope of parts and supplies. On the back end, our international sourcing, auditing, quality, logistics, and commodity intelligence teams work to navigate risk and optimize our global supplier network. Closer to home, we invest in layers of buffer stock, last-mile transportation, and point-of-use technologies to ensure continuous supply. The driving force: a deep understanding of your planned needs and an organizational commitment to prioritize those needs in times of volatility.
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The takeaway

An Onsite is much more than a supply crib or a person making deliveries. It’s a total supply chain solution built around your daily needs and future vision. For you, it means carving out some space in your facility and entrusting us as a supply chain partner. For us, it means investing in the right mix of integration, innovation, and support to drive the outcomes you want to achieve. Above all, it means moving beyond a transactional buyer-seller mindset to pursue common goals, integrated processes, and shared success.


Interested in learning more? See how other organizations are using the Onsite model to gain an advantage in their industries.
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​You may also like:

​Solutions for a Lean (& Green) Supply Chain

​A Game Plan for Operational Excellence: Gillette Stadium

​A Blueprint for a Better Operation (Part 2)

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