A multi-year commitment to efficiency and productivity upgrades is nearing its completion at S&S Truck Parts.
Beginning with the release of its e-commerce ordering platform during HDAW 2017, S&S Truck Parts has spent most of the last three years investing in products and personnel to better position the company within the evolving heavy-duty aftermarket.
Managing Partner D.J. Hoffman says S&S Truck Parts knows the trucking industry is changing. The resounding success of the company’s e-commerce portal has confirmed that time and again. As a result, Hoffman says S&S has dedicated itself to integrating the technology and talent necessary to position S&S Truck Parts on the market’s cutting edge.
In no place is that more evident than the warehouse at the company’s Schaumburg, Ill., headquarters. The 111,000 sq.-ft. facility is the largest parts distribution center (PDC) in the company’s North American distribution network, which currently includes three other locations in the U.S. and four in Canada (a fourth U.S. location, in Bethlehem, Pa., is scheduled for a soft launch in January).
Hoffman says for many years the Schaumburg facility served as a hub of sorts for the company’s other PDCs, receiving and stocking product before distributing inventory to its other locations. He says the system worked but wasn’t optimal, so last year S&S Truck Parts hired Vice President of Operations and Logistics Chris Batt to overhaul the procedures not only in Schaumburg but across its PDCs.
The results have been astounding.
Since Batt’s team began its work at the Schaumburg facility last year, the PDC has improved its stocking, picking and shipment rates across the board, reduced inventory discrepancies and the number of shipments that move through the Illinois facility to the company’s other locations. Batt says the facility’s dock-to-stock speed — the time it takes for product to be unloaded from a truck and available for picking — now stands at 24 hours or less, while it has extended its same-day shipment deadline to 3 p.m. and its unit down shipment deadline to 5 p.m. Additionally, while S&S did temporarily have to move some of its Schaumburg inventory to another warehouse during the renovation, Batt says by the end of December all of that product will again be housed under the Schaumburg roof — expanding the location’s total inventory by nearly a third from its pre-renovation peak “without knocking out a single wall” or adding a foot of new floor space.
For a company that’s seeing more and more orders coming through online, Hoffman says the efficiency enhancements Batt’s team has made are paying immediate dividends.
“In the past we were really built to take regular stock orders but now we’re in a position where we can handle those while also managing a customer’s day-to-day needs,” he says, adding when the Pennsylvania PDC is fully operational next year the company will be able to “deliver to any market next day or in two days.”
Yet the company’s recent improvements haven’t been focused exclusively on warehouse optimization.
S&S Truck Parts also recently developed an outside sales team and dedicated customer service support team to complement its inside sales team and strengthen its overall go-to-market strategy. Hoffman says the change was necessary once the company’s website went live, both to notify distributor customers about the new platform and how to navigate it properly.
Hoffman complements Director of Sales Tom Ondrejcak on the makeup of the workforce, noting because Ondrejcak sourced talent from multiple industries, the 20-plus member sales force is filled equally with product experts, communication and relationship pros and process-centric individuals. Hoffman says he’s already started to see the comprehensive and complementary personalities starting to gel together as associates share their knowledge and expertise with one another.
“We’ve got such a great mix of people and it’s been very organic seeing them work together,” he says.
