Veteran-owned, full-service logistics company War Logistics continues its phenomenal growth spurt over the past several years, welcoming Germany-based Circular Economy Solutions GmbH [C-ECO] and its CoremanNet automotive parts repair and refurbishing system to the U.S. at its warehouse facility in South Memphis.

“They were interested in coming to this area and had contacted me early on about potentially working together,” said War Logistics president and CEO Ronnie Kattawar. “This is a great opportunity for us.”

To mark the occasion, the company held a ribbon-cutting event at its 500,000-square-foot facility at 4098 Premier Ave. on Friday, June 22.

Germany-based Circular Economy Solutions GmbH and its CoremanNet automotive parts repair and refurbishing system have taken space in War Logistics’ Memphis warehouse. (Circular Economy Solutions GmbH)

Privately held War Logistics started out in March 2011 offering only transportation services and quickly grew into staffing and warehousing to meet customer needs. Today, its staffing services include temporary, temporary to permanent, seasonal, project-based, kitting and point of purchase.

“For logistics, we do full truck load, we have an LTL program, we do drayage and hosteling,” said Kattawar.

His company began with a 40,000-square-foot to 50,000-square-foot facility in Memphis, then moved to a larger 100,000-square-foot facility in Olive Branch, before returning to the Memphis area at its current location.

“Memphis is great for anybody who wants to bring their business here,” said Kattawar. “It’s also great for somebody like me to help them. There’s a lot of volume with the transportation in and out of Memphis, so that holds down the pricing. So everyone gets good rates. Also, the spectrum of warehouses that are available is ideal, ranging from showroom space all the way to places that are just needed to protect your products.”

Kattawar also cites the area’s job pool of trained warehouse workers as another of the region’s strengths.

War Logistics employs five people at its office, with 3,000 to 4,000 employees working company-wide during 2017. Types of products handled by the company include sporting goods, cell phones, routers, automotive parts and outdoor leisure items.

Prior to starting War Logistics, Kattawar served in the U.S. Navy. Afterward, he started in warehousing with an APO/FPO (military mail boxes) project. Delivery services like FedEx and UPS are not allowed on military bases to deliver, only the U.S. Post Office.

“So if you’re doing e-commerce and trying to ship a piece to military personnel on a base or on a boat, you have to use the post office,” said Kattawar. “So what we did is we would go and pick everyone’s product up all over town, postage it and then put it on a mail truck.”

Since then, the company has doubled or tripled in size every year.

“Our customers have had good growth, so in turn we’ve had good growth,” said Kattawar.

War Logistics is the only U.S. service center for CoremanNet, which operates a network of 21 logistic hubs and three warehouses spread across Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific and handles about 2.7 million used parts per year.

“CoremanNet is software they use, and the business consists of cores – alternators and starters,” said Adam Shidler, War Logistics operations/general manager. “We get cores from all over the U.S. We receive and process them, and then ship them out to be repaired and sent back to automotive stores to be sold as refurbs. We’re the only ones in the U.S. doing it for them.”

With a return ratio of approximately 90 percent and one of the largest collection volumes in its market, CoremanNet contributes to circular manufacturing systems in the automotive industry.

Despite CoremanNet taking down more than 100,000 square feet in the War Logistics site, more than 200,000 square feet of space remains available for future War Logistics partners.

“Expanding is easy. That’s the great thing about the flexibility of a company our size, we can grow as our customers’ needs grow,” said Shidler, who is a former War Logistics customer. Years ago, he managed more than 100,000 square feet of space inside a War Logistics facility, handling cable boxes for a client.