Malin Inc, trading as Malin Integrated Handling Solutions and Design, continues to grow, now employing more than 365 staff across seven locations.

Malin is based in Addison, a northern suburb of Dallas, and has a Louisiana sales and service branch in Harahan near New Orleans and Texas branches in El Paso, Fort Worth, Houston, McAllen and Schertz near San Antonio. Malin has structured Malin de México SA de CV for portions of its business across the southern US border.

Malin exclusively represents Greene, New York-based Raymond Corp in all of Texas' 254 counties and Louisiana's 64 parishes.

Scott Chontos, chief executive officer, and John Crème, president, are Malin dealer principals. Bill Hyde and Robert E McCarter are co-chairmen of the Malin board of directors.

In a letter to customers, the co-chairmen say: "Since our inception in1971 (as a Raymond dealership), we have committed to developing a company that provides customised materials handling solutions and logistic services for our customer(s) and marketplace. We continuously evaluate our business model, product offerings and customer services to make sure we exceed your expectations and provide the solutions that are in your company's best interest. Our commitment is to deliver what we say we will deliver."

The Container Store Inc of Coppell, Texas is among key Malin customers. The specialty retail chain sells storage and organisation solutions for home and office applications through more than 50 stores in nearly 20 states and a website.

In 2002, the retailer conducted a 10-year sales growth projection that identified the need for a larger facility for its distribution centre and corporate offices. The Container Store and Malin began a relationship in 2003 during the retailer's combination of two smaller facilities into a highly integrated 1.1 million sqft. (99,000 sqm) facility in Coppell.

During two years of planning, Mike Coronado, the retailer's director of distribution, and others on the distribution and logistics management team had the challenging task of designing the centre, filling it with new equipment and getting all systems integrated and running. The Container Store turned to Malin.

The new facility was 80% larger than the old very-narrow-aisle distribution space and incorporated Malin-inspired improvements in racking layout, slotting and equipment. The Container Store estimates it has improved its process time by 30% since 2004.

Now, the distribution centre utilises 51 Raymond units, including 24 pallet trucks for floor-level, primary picking to process daily orders; 15 Deep-Reach trucks for moving pallets from the dock into the racking reserves and moving reserves down to primary locations on the floor level; four stand-up counterbalance trucks for unloading tractor trailers; four model 5500 order pickers for a few specified areas with above-ground-level picking and cycle counts; two model 8600 tow tractors for moving trash hoppers and recycling materials to compactors; and two sitdown counterbalance trucks for moving heavier loads.

"When planning our redesign, we looked years down the road to see what partner and expert we wanted to do business with, and we felt most comfortable with Malin," says Coronado. "This collaboration has proven to be everything we thought it would be."