New Copperfield Chimney Supply Introduced
Friday, June 21, 2019
From Bill Sendelback
After the January, 2019, acquisition of distributor Copperfield Chimney Supply by venting manufacturer Olympia Chimney Supply, the resulting new organization has rethought and fine-tuned its operations to be more responsive to its customers, according to Bryan Yourdon, Olympia CEO. The company in July is launching its “New Copperfield.”
“We originally planned to keep things status quo for both Copperfield and Olympia,” Yourdon explains, “but by combining our operations we can be more effective and responsive to our customers.”
Key to the new organization is a customer service, technical service, and sales staff of 40 people operating out of both Copperfield’s Fairfield, Iowa, office and Olympia’s Scranton, Pennsylvania, headquarters. Copperfield continues to be one of North America’s largest hearth products distributors, and the renamed Olympia Chimney & Venting will continue as a full-line venting manufacturer predominantly supplying Copperfield.
Customers will have access to the staff personnel with whom they have always worked, but a $2 million new investment in communications equipment and software will allow customers to seamlessly deal with the personnel, in either location, who are the most knowledgeable for each particular customer’s needs.
A new Copperfield catalog has been expanded to include Olympia products and other new products; it now totals more than 7,500 SKUs.
Copperfield originally had six distribution centers and Olympia had five, many of which were very small operations. The New Copperfield is a consolidation of these distribution centers into three new, strategic locations in Bridgeport, New Jersey; Cleveland, Ohio; and Reno, Nevada, now totaling 500,000 sq. ft. These new distribution centers and the new communications system promise same day shipments of orders placed by 3pm and three-day order delivery.
“During our evaluation of our new organization, we learned just how valuable our people are, especially to our customers,” says Yourdon. “We feel confident that with these changes and improvements, we will be the leader in distributor customer service. We think this is a good ship to be on.”
