February 11, 2026Spring is one of the busiest transition periods for retailers. As winter inventory clears out, stores prepare for fresh products and updated merchandising layouts. These “spring resets” often involve new floor displays, refreshed aisle layouts, and the rollout of featured products—sometimes across multiple locations. Partnering with a third-party logistics provider (3PL) can help retailers deliver a successful spring …
Flexible Polymer Bagging and Re-Pack Solutions
January 15, 2026Looking to optimize your polymer distribution or manufacturing operations? Work with a 3PL expert to provide custom re-pack and bagging services to help you meet different customer requirements and handling needs. Whether you or your customers require resin to be bagged directly into 25 kg volumes; bulk shipments to be broken into smaller quantities; smaller bags to be …
The Importance of Pellet Control
January 14, 2026Having been a logistics partner to the plastics industry for over four decades, we understand the importance of pellet (nurdle) control, which is preventing plastic resin loss throughout the supply chain. That’s why we are a member of Operation Clean Sweep® (OCS), a global plastics industry-led initiative founded in 1991. OCS encourages best practices in plastic resin handling, …
The Post-Holiday Pivot:
Managing Returns and Replenishment January 5, 2026January isn’t downtime for retailers—it’s reset time following the surge of the holiday peak. Along with fulfilling ongoing orders, they must balance processing a high volume of returns with positioning inventory for the spring and summer seasons. Reverse logistics is employed to determine what returned items are re-stocked, refurbished, offloaded for resale by secondary …
Cross-Docking Can Be a Retailer’s Best Friend
October 23, 2025Cross-docking can be a retailer’s best friend during seasonal peaks. This is because it speeds up the distribution process. Cross-docking refers to the transfer of product from inbound to outbound transportation in a relatively short timeframe without having to warehouse it. Usually, trucks carry the inbound and outbound shipments, but sometimes transfer occurs with other modes of transportation, …
CPG Kitting and Fulfillment
Business challenge: A manufacturer of a fabric dumpster bag needed a partner who could receive its product in bulk via floor loaded ocean containers from overseas, create kits, and distribute them to big box home improvement stores. ASW’s solution: ASW receives and inventories product in bulk, kits orders, and creates store displays. Kits and store displays are shipped to big …
ASW Polymer Services Packaging Types
What kinds of containers are used to package plastic resin? ASW’s Polymer Services can package or re-pack plastic resin into various types of containers depending on our clients’ requirements. Containers vary by size and material type. Larger containers can hold bulk quantities weighing several hundred to several thousand pounds. Smaller containers typically hold product weighing between 50 to 900 pounds. …
ASW Polymer Services Overview
Handling plastic resin has long been in our blood. This is easy to understand, as our headquarters sits in the center of the U.S. polymer industry and polymer research. The Greater Akron region’s early history in the rubber industry expanded to other polymers, including plastic. In the early 1980’s we created the Gilchrist Polymer Center, which is where our headquarters …
Advantages of Transloading and Intermodal Transportation Involving Rail
March 27, 2025As a company that has a rail spur on site to transload, store, and transport dry bulk plastic resin, we understand the importance of rail transportation. Within our Transportation Management division, we also understand the value of rail when brokering freight. Rail is often a part—and usually an integral part—of both transloading and intermodal transportation. What are the …
How Can a Distribution Center Help Your Business?
February 13, 2025As businesses scale, they must determine whether they can handle all of the increased demands on their operations in house, or whether they need to outsource particular processes. One of those processes is order fulfillment. Businesses looking to make their order fulfillment processes more efficient and less costly turn to 3PL’s that operate distribution centers.What Is a Distribution …