Pival International Inc.
A Partnership Approach
Flexibility, agility, adaptability, custom solutions: such are the advantages of Pival International, a warehouse company
specialized mainly in the automotive world and industrial products with facilities in Ontario and Quebec.
Pival International is a good example of creativity and determination in logistics. Its success story started in 2003 when Mario La Barbera, President of Logistique Acurail Inc., began working with Daniel Goyette, President of C.A.T. Inc., to pool their expertise in railway, intermodal and road transportation. The new company, called Pival International, stands for ‘‘Partners In Value Added Logistics." Its mission is to offer multimodal solutions with dedicated, custom logistics. Recognizing his success at C.A.T., La Barbera decided to recruit Bernard Yergeau as Vice-President, Finance and Administration, to help in the development of custom logistics solutions. Since its creation, Pival has successfully provided custom solutions for storage, inventory and distribution of raw materials and finished products. Today, Pival has more than 70 employees in three warehouses, with a fourth currently under construction. Among its clients it counts large companies such as GM, Bridgestone-Firestone, Goodyear, Pirelli, Continental, Kruger and Alcoa.

BIG PROJECTS FOR GM OSHAWA
   Building on the success of its warehouses in Trois-Rivières, Valleyfield and Ajax, Pival is developing its biggest project yet, an integrated logistics centre in Oshawa. When completed, this centre of 41 acres will offer warehouse and crossdocking services to GM and other users, with 22 indoor positions for rail cars, 154 loading docks and more than 600,000 square feet of storage space. More than 700 trucks per day will deliver merchandise that will then be delivered to GM in production sequence. Pival is little known in Quebec and most of Ontario, but is well known at the three Oshawa GM plants, which produce 3,600 vehicles per day. According to La Barbera, ‘‘Our partnership approach is what makes us successful."
   Pival has two distribution centres in Quebec, in Trois-Rivières and Valleyfield, and another in Ajax, Ontario, located about 20 kilometres from Oshawa, the Canadian automotive capital.

AJAX
   In Ajax, the heart of the Canadian automotive industry, Pival operates a warehouse of 128,000 square feet for a big North American automaker, General Motors. The warehouse is 26 feet in height, allowing vertical space for five pallets. The distribution centre has a specific mission: to provide GM with tires of all kinds based on deliveries made directly to the Ajax warehouse, by the automaker's suppliers. Yergeau explains: ‘‘GM and Pival have worked in partnership to develop this custom solution that GM wanted to implement for a long time.
   ‘‘The automaker notified all its suppliers to deliver to us. For our part, we guarantee GM just-in-time delivery to meet requirements of their production line. Every day, 17,000 tires arrive at the centre while just as many leave it. Just-in-time allows GM to reduce management costs with a group of suppliers and keep their production line active. The cost of production downtime is enormous. We usually receive GM's order the night before the shipment, but our processes allow multiple daily deliveries," says Yergeau.

VALLEYFIELD
   Another Pival warehouse is located in Valleyfield. It covers 256,000 square feet and contains tires, zinc and other industrial products. Pival's creativity here is also the key to its competitive success. “Goodyear produces its winter tires in Valleyfield,” Yergeau explains. “When the winter tires were produced, Goodyear distributed them to different warehouses throughout North America.

President of Pival International Mario La Barbera shows a photo of the start of work in Oshawa. He is accompanied by Bernard Yergeau, Vice-President, Finance.
The Pival International team at the groundbreaking of the new Oshawa logistics centre. We see Bernard Yergeau, Vice-President, Finance, and third from left, the President, Mario La Barbera.

In the fall, tires were brought back to warehouses in Montreal and Toronto for delivery to customers, from several storage locations ranging from Maryland to as far as Texas. It is easy to imagine the astronomical costs of shipments of this scope. Customer service suffered, and delivery lead times could stretch to as long as ten days." Pival suggested to Goodyear that they create a distribution centre in Valleyfield, to keep all winter tires on the premises and deliver them from the new warehouse. Result: delivery lead time reduced to two days. Tires are stored in trailers between two seasons. ‘‘Replenishment is thus possible without being limited to a fixed area of the warehouse," says Yergeau, who in addition to filling the role of Vice-President is responsible for managing the centre.
   And he adds: ‘‘We have greatly improved our clients sales by making their supply chain more effective. Our custom solution for tire manufacturers has eliminated stock-outs. In addition, sales have climbed because we have adapted the logistics to the specific needs of the client."

PORT OF TROIS-RIVIÈRES
   The facilities in Trois-Rivières are used, in particular, for Kruger. According to La Barbera, ‘‘The warehouse serves the Kruger mills in Wayagamack, Trois-Rivières and Bromptonville. Kruger maintained three warehouses that were the responsibility of each mill. We recommended a single warehouse in Trois-Rivières that would receive the pulp from the three mills, and would thus produce considerable savings in costs. Our temperature- controlled warehouse of 80,000 square feet is amply sufficient for the task. Pival itself manages the pulp inventory between the three mills for Kruger. We deliver on demand just-in-time."
   Management of the warehouse is assigned to Acurail, a division of Pival. La Barbera continues: ‘‘At the Port of Trois-Rivières, we put rail into service to offer a transshipment service for local companies not served by rail."

TRANSPORT COMMITTEE OF VAUDREUIL-SOULANGE
   Pival is very involved in its region. Mario La Barbera is even president of the Transport Committee of Vaudreuil-Soulange. La Barbera believes that the next big project will be at Coteau-du-Lac where Canadian Tire is building its biggest distribution centre to serve eastern Canada. Pival is a partner in the development of the Coteau-du-Lac industrial park, with the owner Alta. According to La Barbera, ‘‘Vaudreuil-Soulange would like to welcome other logistics companies, and Pival has been working closely with the CLD, the RCM, industries, CN and various levels of governments to promote the region." Pival possesses more than a million square feet to realize turnkey projects.

CUSTOM DESIGN
   On the other hand, Yergeau does not see his service as a public warehouse. ‘‘We work exclusively on custom projects that correspond to a particular requirement. At Pival, our service begins with a detailed analysis of the supply chain. We analyze the flow of goods and we propose a strategy to optimize processes, end-to-end. Organizations experiencing strong growth can avoid relocation or expansion of their facilities by taking advantage of our services to manage inputs/outputs, while using the space freed for new production. Effective control of inventories, and elimination of inefficiencies, combined with a strategy of just-in-time deliveries form the foundation of our competitive advantages."
 
 
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