Joseph Murphy, head of logistics for Fuller Industries Inc. west of Great Bend, may feel pretty puny standing at his workstation in Fuller Industries’ cavernous finished products warehouse. He is surrounded in the football-field-sized space by massive shelving units stacked with items from barrels to bottles ready to be shipped to customers all over the Western Hemisphere.

“There is a lot of stuff in here,” he said of the pallets of commercial cleaning products packed floor-to-ceiling. “We stay busy” and handling this task for a company like Fuller keeps him and his team on their toes.

A squadron of forklifts, some able to reach to the tip-top shelves, buzz and beep around. They haul in the plastic-wrapped containers and haul them out for delivery.

All this activity means this big room is never completely full, so the company leases space to other local manufacturers (Red Barn Pet Products is among the customers),

“It’s another source of revenue for us,” said Joe Mann, Fuller vice president and general manager. “This way, unused space gets utilized. It is a win-win for us and those we serve.

“This is a great opportunity to partner with fellow companies. We’re all in this together,” Mann said. “If we can help each other out and support the local economy, we need to do what we can.”

This is one of two large warehouses at Fuller. Connected to it next door is the area where raw materials are stored, and that one is full, keeping the production lines stocked.