MADONE, Italy (BRAIN)—3T has opened a new warehousing and distribution facility in the Taichung Free Trade Zone. It will provide a single, global point of stocking and distribution for 3T’s growing range of high-technology cycle components.
The warehouse will hold significant stocks of product to fulfill orders from bicycle OEMs and aftermarket distributors, shipping anywhere in the world by sea container, airfreight, or UPS. It will also hold part-assemblies for onward routing to 3T’s Taiwanese assembly partners.
"This is a major step forward in our strategy to become the world’s leading supplier of lightweight cycle components," said 3T chief executive officer René Wiertz. "This will greatly simplify stockholding and shipping. We are a global business and our products ship to customers in all five continents. The new warehouse gives us a single point of shipping to all locations and all customer types, and ensures we can always respond quickly to demand. Streamlined fulfillment will let us respond faster to customer orders, cut delivery overheads, and smooth away customs-clearance headaches.
"As well as getting a really tight grip on stockholding and shipping, we will be able to improve and harmonize all product packaging. This assists aftermarket retailers to utilize shelving effectively and allows us to assert a bold and consistent brand image," Wiertz added.
3T has also appointed Maria Luisa Grappone as its new engineering lead for finite-element analysis. Grappone joins the 3T engineering team in Madone, Italy. She will be responsible for the FEA function across all product lines, reporting to technical director Richard McAinsh. The newly created role means all stages of product design and development are now under one roof—previously 3T had outsourced FEA.
Grappone brings 3T a penetrating understanding of design and test gained in the aerospace industry with Boeing contractor Fox Bit and the European Space Agency. Her most recent role at Fox Bit was as stress analyst in the Boeing 787 program. She was also assistant coordinator of the R&D Department.
