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Vulcan Industries Lands CVS
Overseas Manufacturing Creates Perfect Partnership

A huge drugstore chain like CVS doesn’t deal in small potatoes for anything, especially its display units. With approximately 6,200 stores nationwide, CVS fills one out of every seven prescriptions and boasts 50 million members of its ExtraCare program (the largest customer loyalty program in the United States). So when the time came for CVS to consolidate its wire display providers down from seven to one, CVS called on Vulcan Industries. And VI answered with the capabilities to do everything – from manufacturing to logistics to shipping.

Vulcan Industries (VI), EBSCO’s point-of-purchase display manufacturer based just outside Birmingham, has spent countless hours trying to reel in the big fish of the retail world. Boasting customers like Home Depot, Hershey and Pepsi/Frito-Lay, VI has placed itself among the leading point-of-purchase display manufacturers in the country. And VI wanted CVS.

Dan Lentini, sales representative for VI, spent two years presenting the company’s capabilities to different levels of management at CVS. “We educated ourselves on what they were doing and tried to fit in with that,” he said. CVS assured Lentini that a project “would come up.” That opportunity came soon after.

CVS realized it needed one domestic company to handle every aspect of the displays for new and existing stores. However, CVS wanted the displays manufactured in China to save on costs, and VI delivered. Phyllis Haley, project manager, began her involvement with the CVS manufacturing project in November 2005, when CVS sent sample units to VI and requested that prototype wire displays be created. VI sent the samples to a manufacturer in China in December 2005 and received the prototypes just a month later. Upon review, CVS was pleased with the prototypes and awarded VI the contract. CVS contracted with VI to produce 63 different units for CVS – all manufactured in China. As the project manager, Haley’s job is to handle the logistics of the project – everything from processing orders to shipping to customer service. “My main mission is to take care of the customers and answer their questions,” she said. So far, CVS has been very pleased with the products and the partnership with VI, which Jeff Wolk, procurement manager for the CVS project, estimates to be 8 percent of VI’s total business. “We have received a lot of positive feedback from CVS,” Lentini said. Haley added, “CVS has been extremely pleased with us. VI is quick to take care of any issues that arise, like necessary expedited shipping. We’ve had a good outcome with our first job that’s been produced completely overseas.”

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