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Exel will host an open job fair Nov. 18 at the P&G facility and has launched a website for applicants, exeldaytonjobs.com.
Quality Associates expects to employ 100 permanent and 150 temporary workers at the site by summer 2015. Open positions are posted on the company’s website, quality-associates.com.
The new Procter & Gamble multi-brand distribution center in Union will elevate the Dayton region’s profile as a national logistics hub and could attract other companies to the area, an industry expert said.
Construction on the $90 million facility at Union’s Global Logistics Air Park will be completed Monday, and P&G plans to take possession of the center on that date, said Jeff LeRoy, a company spokesman. At 1.8 million square feet, the facility near the Dayton International Airport is larger than 30 football fields, he said.
Exel and Quality Associates, the two third-party firms that will operate the P&G center, both held their first local hiring events this week. Combined, the companies plan to employ about 1,350 workers at the facility by the end of 2015, officials said.
“The fact that Procter & Gamble selected Dayton would certainly go a long way in increasing the profile of the area,” said Mike Jones, president of the St. Onge Co., a Pennsylvania-based supply chain engineering and logistics consulting firm.
Many businesses consider Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble “best in class” for global supply chain management and would emulate the company’s actions, he said.
The new facility “definitely elevates Dayton from a third-tier distribution location, and certainly helps to give it a lot more visibility to other companies that are considering where to locate,” Jones said.
Historically, the Dayton region has been associated with automotive manufacturing. Last year, St. Onge completed a study that found the area has “tremendous growth potential” for logistics and distribution.
Dayton fits into virtually all distribution networks for the continental United States, located near the crossroads of two well-traveled interstates, within 600 miles of 67 percent of the U.S. population and within 600 miles of 60 percent of the nation’s manufacturing employment and 48 percent of the nation’s purchasing power, the St. Onge report said.
The P&G distribution center will be the region’s largest in terms of both square footage and workforce.
Jones said an 800,000-square-foot distribution center is considered large, and the P&G facility is more than twice that size. “There are very few facilities in the country that are bigger than that,” he said.
P&G, a multinational consumer products manufacturer valued at $225.38 billion, is constructing a total of six new distribution centers in Ohio, Illinois, Texas, Georgia, California and Pennsylvania.
LeRoy said the company is redesigning its North American supply chain to improve service to consumers and retailers with P&G brands and products, and to reduce costs.
“We expect to reach 80 percent of retailers from our facilities within one day,” LeRoy said. “The new Dayton distribution center is a part of this. The Dayton site is strategically closer to population centers and major transportation networks.”
The new distribution centers also will help P&G keep its labor and building costs under control because the company is leasing the facilities and contracting with third-party providers to operate them.
P&G will have five managers at the Union site, who are transferring from other locations, LeRoy said.
“We look forward to the Dayton site beginning full operations in the coming months,” LeRoy said.
The company will lease the Union facility from industrial real estate developer Prologis Inc., which owns and manages the property. Westerville, Ohio-based contract logistics provider Exel will hire and manage logistics workers for the P&G distribution center. Quality Associates, a contract packaging company headquartered in West Chester Twp., will hire the facility’s light manufacturing workforce.
Officials said workers will receive paychecks and benefits through Exel and Quality Associates, not P&G.
Exel plans to hire about 800 salaried and hourly workers in two phases, said Lynn Anderson, the company’s vice president of communications. Phase one will be completed by the end of the first quarter of next year, and phase two will be done by October 2015. Most new hires will start work after Jan. 1, she said.
“We will have responsibility for all the product moving in and out of the site; the way that the site is situated and organized; and then of course all the people working in there for Exel,” Anderson said.
Exel will host an open job fair Nov. 18 at the P&G facility and has launched a website for applicants, exeldaytonjobs.com.
Exel employs 25,000 workers in the U.S. and Canada, including about 3,200 full-time workers in Ohio, where the company has 28 locations, including its headquarters, Anderson said. The company also will provide workers for P&G’s new distribution center in Georgia.
Quality Associates plans to hire about 550 workers by the end of 2015, including 350 permanent employees, said Steve Bowden, the company’s president.
North Carolina-based Debbie’s Staffing will supplement Quality Associates’ employee base with temporary workers for seasonal and promotional period spikes, he said.
Quality Associates expects to employ 100 permanent and 150 temporary workers at the site by summer 2015. The company will be responsible for secondary packaging, point-of-purchase displays, retail end caps and promotional displays for the P&G product.
Currently, the company is hiring its seven-member management team, which will then start hiring about 25 supervisors in December. Other employees will be hired in January and February, Bowden said.
Open positions are posted on the company’s website, quality-associates.com.
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