Speed to market is critical for high-value products like Pentax digital and film cameras. Working together with FedEx, Japan's Pentax Corporation reduced its factory-to-retailer lead time by half in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean.

Pentax products bound for those markets used to take up to 10 days to go from factories across Asia to a central warehouse in Colorado, and then on to retailers. No longer.

The Pentax senior management team worked with FedEx to rethink its strategy. The result is an entirely new Pentax Direct Distribution System, with products moving from regional manufacturing to the FedEx Asia-Pacific Hub at Subic Bay, the Philippines. Inside the onsite Pentax operation, order data is received from Pentax information systems and individual shipments are prepared for direct delivery to retailers, using FedEx International Priority DirectDistribution.

The lean, efficient distribution model is not only five days faster but less costly, too, since Pentax saves on total inventory expense.

Pentax created an entirely new business model that allowed it to "maximize sales potential and minimize long-term inventory levels," said Michael L. Ducker, executive vice president international, FedEx Express. "The FedEx Express global air, ground and information technology networks are ideally suited to help Pentax speed delivery of its products."

pentax.com