SERVICES - The Great Central Turf Advantage

Great Central Turf (GCT) was formed to allow smaller companies with lower volume requirements to enter the world of domestic sourcing with little or no effort. Originally focusing on Outdoor Power Equipment companies, we found our services expanding to a larger and more diverse market. GCT now supplies components to many industries in volumes ranging from a few hundred pieces to many thousands of parts.

GCT sources all of our client's components and assemblies from China. We supply a few products complete; no products are sold under the Great Central Turf or GCT name.

Our mission is to find the highest quality, lowest cost Chinese manufacturer for each component we source. GCT has full time employees in China who fully understand the market and the manufacture's abilities. When searching for manufacturing partners we balance the quality requirements to best fit each application, customer need and customer cost range.

GCT maintains a domestic warehouse in Naperville, Illinois where parts are stocked and shipped on demand - at customer's request. The release quantities and dates can be flexible since GCT maintains safety stock and works to longer range forecasts. Our customers are not invoiced until stock is shipped from this warehouse.

Lastly GCT manages all aspects of the business to make a seamless transition from the manufacturer to our customer. Using this approach, our domestic partner can focus on growing their end of the business without having to manage a foreign supply chain.

GCT manages all aspects of the supply chain from:

Procurement

Locating the best manufacturer for each product type and application
Verifying each manufacturers long and short term financial status
Validating the manufacturers quality control systems
Negotiating the lowest price for each GCT customer on each component

Production Monitoring

Verifying each in-house manufacturing operation for every component
Reviewing the material flow process to assure the most efficient production
Buffering against foreign exchange rate fluctuations
Onsite monitoring of tooling development and maintenance

Traffic & Inventory Management

Maintain inventory in our domestic warehouse
Ship to the buyer on a flexible release schedule – at the supplier request
Maintaining safety stock both domestically and at the manufacturer
Managing international sea shipments to reduce transport costs
Combining different customers shipments to take advantage of larger volume sea shipments
Assuring FIFO inventory flow at all points
Coordinate timing of sea and truck shipments to meet customer's requirements
Negotiate and pay all duties and customs fees

Quality & Technical & Product Start-up

Translating any and all applicable documents to English
Manage the PPAP process
Provide Material Analysis Reports
Supply final inspection documentation as required
On site monitoring of final and in-process inspection gages
Technical drawing maintenance and translation
Coordinate all aspects of product start-up; including sample and pilot builds
Coordinate part revision changes and material use out

GCT works hard to ease production start-up so that companies can easily enter the global sourcing market. We work to keep tooling costs low and often cover these costs. GCT provides sample parts off of production tooling often at no charge. All PPAP and inspection paperwork are supplied at no charge. Larger runs of test samples, Pre-production runs and ramp-up parts are supplied at the blanket price listed in our quotation.

Ultimately – we want our customers to feel they are doing business with a responsive domestic company while enjoying the advantages of the lower costs provided by foreign manufacturers.