GREIF BROS. CORPORATION

By Staff -- Purchasing, 2/8/2001

Name: Mark S. Casey

Title: Supply chain manager-resins/steel for industrial shipping containers

Company: Greif Bros. Corp., Delaware, Ohio, a $947 million (fiscal 2000 sales) producer of fibre drums, steel drums, plastic drums, intermediate bulk containers, corrugated containers and multiwall packaging. Greif Bros. provides industrial shipping containers to Fortune 500 companies and to a wide range of small and medium-size businesses located throughout North America. For the 2000 fiscal year, net sales of the Industrial Shipping Containers division of $476 million was just over half of total company sales.

Reports to: Rick Bidwell, director of purchasing and supply chain management for industrial shipping containers

Education: Casey holds a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, N.J.

Professional background: Prior to joining Greif, Casey was global manager of raw materials purchasing in charge of steel, aluminum, magnesium, scrap and foundry alloy purchases for Ford Motor Co. Casey began his professional purchasing experience in 1973 as a buyer and then supervisor for Ingersoll-Rand Co. He later worked in purchasing, materials management and purchasing administration at Hiross Inc., Garden Way Inc. and Honda of America Manufacturing.

What he buys: Current responsibility is the industrial container division's North American raw material requirements, primarily steel and resins. His current job is to develop and assure implementation for the strategic procurement of raw materials with the cooperation of regional cross-functional teams. Recent corporate expansions will change the job to a global focus.

Internal partners: "We have a strong network of key managers from quality, manufacturing, logistics, engineering and sales. Our purpose is to incorporate the long-term corporate goals into annual targets and achieve the appropriate results. The results have been well received, but more important the 'how to' has been the greatest part of our success. The level and thrust of the cooperation has been outstanding. We seem to always come up with customers that have either problems or opportunities for the team to solve; thus, more things to improve upon." Their most recent test was to change over the use of electrogalvanized steel to hot-dipped galvanized steel in 24 North American steel drum manufacturing plants" and to produce over eight million drums without any interruptions. "The mission was accomplished with the help of suppliers and internal partners."

External partners: "The key external partners are clearly the suppliers. Suppliers are most effective when they are involved from the earliest point of the idea phase. If, however, we do not have everyone up to the same level of understanding and responsibility, numerous problems arise." The other key is a constant flow of information and feedback to help everyone stay on track and keep the focus and priorities the same. "Sharing in the rewards and recognition helps things go a lot smoother as well."

Reason for partnerships: Because Greif supplies a cross section of industries-such as chemicals, food products, petroleum products, pharmaceuticals and metal products-it must make spot deliveries on a day-to-day basis as its products are required by its customers. Many customers place their orders weekly for delivery during the week, yet Greif operates with no backlog and maintains only limited levels of finished goods. That makes supply management a paramount consideration.