Business View Magazine
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“At that point, the industry – most notably the garment
industry in New York - heard what happened in Cleve-
land, Ohio, and started to come out to visit the facility
and my father gave the tours,” says Patrick Sedlak, Jo-
seph’s son and present principal of his dad’s original
supply chain consultant company. “So, they started
asking him to come to New York to see what he could
do to with their places.” In addition to working for Salz-
man, the elder Sedlak was teaching evening courses
in engineering and logistics at John Carroll University.
“His passion was in distribution,” son Patrick contin-
ues, “so he took advantage of the opportunity and
built a business around it. We were founded in the gar-
ment industry and eventually my father left his job and
started the business as we know it today.”
Begun in 1958, and now in its second generation of
family ownership, Sedlak Management Consultants is
a comprehensive supply chain and distribution logis-
tics advisory firm, providing independent and innova-
tive solutions to companies across a broad range of in-
dustries. It has successfully served over 1,200 clients
through more than 2,500 projects, based on opera-
tional best practices. Its breadth of services extends
into network strategy, facility planning and design, op-
erations improvement, transportation planning, and
inventory optimization.
Sedlak’s President, Will O’Brien, explains that the
largest percentage of the company’s business comes
within the distribution field, addressing and solving
its clients’ questions, such as: “Where should my fa-
cilities be located? How many facilities should I have?
What service area should they serve? How big should
they be? How do I design and configure them? How
do I specify all the material handling equipment from
racks through conveyance, through robots, through
rolling stock? And how does my facility operate?” “That
is the critical mass of where our revenue comes from –
distribution. And we’re finding more work on the trans-
portation and planning inventory side of the business,
now, as well,” he adds.
AT A GLANCE
WHO:
Sedlak Management Consultants
WHAT:
A comprehensive supply chain and distri-
bution logistics advisory firm
WHERE:
Cleveland, Ohio
WEBSITE
: