Attention

Southland Steel Fabricators Inc.’s $20 million facility expansion in Louisiana (2019) set the stage for a critical sourcing challenge. Facing rising material costs and tight deadlines, the company sought a partner to re-engineer its procurement strategy for two key components:

• Standardized rollers‌ (with full technical specs and drawings)
• Bulk zinc ingots‌ (requiring quality and volume guarantees)
• The customer’s expectation? Achieve ‌cost savings above 30%‌ while maintaining or exceeding quality standards.

Desire

Joey, the project lead, identified three core pain points:

• High costs‌: Domestic suppliers for rollers and zinc ingots were pricing them out of the market.
• Quality risks‌: Inconsistent material quality from suppliers had led to production delays.
• Logistical complexity‌: Global supply chains added layers of uncertainty and cost.
• Sourcing Captain’s mission was to address these challenges while aligning with Southland’s long-term growth goals.

Action

Sourcing Captain implemented a ‌three-pronged sourcing approach‌ tailored to each component:

1. Rollers: China-Centric Efficiency‌
Action‌: Screened 12+ Chinese manufacturers, creating detailed technical comparison matrices to evaluate quality, lead times, and pricing.
Innovation‌: Used real-time supplier portals to verify specifications and track production progress, reducing miscommunication risks.
Outcome‌: Achieved a ‌48% cost reduction‌ compared to domestic suppliers. The success led to ‌repeat orders from 2020 to 2025‌, making rollers a benchmark for future expansion projects.
2. Zinc Ingots: Freight-Centric Decision‌
Challenge‌: Initial savings from a China-Vietnam-Russia supply chain were ‌19% below the target 30%‌.
Action‌: Optimized freight routes and negotiated bulk discounts with international suppliers, focusing on total landed cost (TLC).
Outcome‌: Despite not fully meeting the 30% target, the solution provided ‌consistent quality and volume guarantees‌, ensuring uninterrupted production.
Strategic Outcomes‌

Long-Term Partnership‌: Roller orders became a ‌expansion benchmark‌, demonstrating the scalability of Sourcing Captain’s approach.

Client Testimonial‌

“Sourcing Captain’s transparency reshaped our procurement strategy. Their data-driven decisions and real-time updates gave us confidence to scale.”
— CEO, Southland Steel Fabricators Inc.‌

Satisfaction

Southland Steel Fabricators Inc. achieved ‌significant cost savings‌, ‌improved supply chain resilience‌, and ‌strengthened supplier relationships‌. The collaboration set a precedent for future projects, proving that strategic sourcing can drive both short-term savings and long-term growth.