When Thomas Crowder, president of CRTS Inc, says that location is everything in his business, most people would assume he's involved in the real estate business. If you ask him that question, he might tell you that in some ways he is.
That's an odd thought for a man whose core business is trailer sales, parts sales, and service. Especially when you consider that the organization he operates is a candidate for the prestigious National Trailer Dealer of the Year Award, to be presented at the National Trailer Dealers Association meeting November 2-4 at Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.
By all the observable signs, CRTS is performing very well. Under the direction of Crowder and his management team, CRTS has expanded into South Carolina and Virginia, while simultaneously expanding the company's North Carolinian dealership locations. If that's not enough, CRTS is a leading parts distributor as well as a national leader in overall trailer sales for several manufacturers. Crowder says he owes his group's success to a policy of geographic expansion that meets customers' needs.
Crowder says that he wants to be as close as possible to the main core of the dealership's customers. To do that, CRTS appears to have carried out two distinctive expansionary projects. One was the new construction of the Garner, North Carolina, headquarters facility. The other part of the plan was an expansion to other communities of trailer customers near the Garner facility.
Keeping knowledgeable people is a key to operating the company, says Crowder. Modern business acumen suggests that the best way to attract and keep skilled personnel is to provide them with the best available tools. It could be that CRTS' answer is to build a bigger facility.
CRTS is now complete with the construction of the Garner facility.
Garner, North Carolina, is situated just south of the Raleigh metroplex. Garner provides an easily accessible location for the Raleigh-based companies to do business with CRTS. It also provides a centralized headquarters facility for the expanding CRTS operation.
A company spokesperson says that plans for the new facility were started in 1995. However, the business environment was changing at such a fast pace for CRTS that the plans were continuously changed until a final version was agreed upon in June 1999. The building was finally completed in June 2000.
Two Floors The new 64,237-sq-ft facility is divided into 44,816 square feet on the first floor and 19,421 square feet on the second floor. The building, sitting on less than 14 acres, is designed to be both a corporate headquarters and a full-service trailer dealership. A company spokesperson says that the building is also designed to be a teaching and meeting facility, when needed.
The building includes separate meeting areas for personnel in trailer sales, parts sales, and service. Company administrators, as a whole group, have a dedicated room on the second floor that displays all of the awards and recognition that the company has obtained.
The sale of parts takes on a visible role at the Garner facility. The facility has in excess of 20,000 square feet dedicated to the parts operation. The walk-in parts display will be located in a 3,000-sq-ft area designed to provide customers with supermarket parts shopping.
CRTS also has dedicated approximately 3,200 square feet for office and conferencing space to the parts department. According to a company spokesperson, the company will provide outside parts salespeople with office space.
CRTS is staying committed to trailer sales activities. The new facility has in excess of 6,000 square feet of dedicated sales office space. Company officials indicate that this facility will separate administration from the sales activities while providing sales and administrative personnel with more usable room.
The service department is equipped with its own conferencing area. Company officials state that in-house training of service personnel is going to be very important in the future.
The Garner facility includes a 24,000-sq-ft repair shop. The 20-bay shop is configured as a drive-through facility. Repair work can be moved through ten overhead openings on each side of the building.
The shop was designed with current accepted architectural practices. Each bay opening has a waterproof electrical connection placed on the outer face of the building. Built-in air hose couplings are located at convenient center aisle and outer bay door locations for each work station.
The parts intake area has been designed for loading and unloading efficiency. The dock lock equipment has been designed to guard against trailer damage during the backing and unloading process.
Military Efficiency CRTS' company management adheres to a policy of training talented and experienced employees in other locations within the company.
Paula Goodsell, coordinating-manager for CRTS' bulk purchasing and parts operations manager for the Garner location, has benefited from this policy.
Goodsell served in the US Army and worked in the aftermarket parts and supply field. Goodsell's military occupational specialty was in supply and transportation. She was stationed at the Korean demilitarized zone during part of her active duty. From that experience, she learned the importance of supplying the correct equipment replacement parts.
"That's not an area where mission-critical equipment can be placed out of service for long periods of time," says Goodsell. "Not only did you have to stock the part, you might have a situation where you needed to find it pretty quickly."
Goodsell had a firsthand opportunity to experience the challenge of coordinating parts inventory in different depots. She also handled parts-origination distances and packaging/shipping challenges.
"During my 16 years with CRTS, I've had a great opportunity to use the things I learned during my time in the Army," says Goodsell. Apparently, Goodsell's experience, along with that of the other parts and service managers, has been beneficial to the company.
Parts Bigger Than Whole CRTS believes that it has been one of the top performing Utility trailer parts distributors for many years. The management of CRTS credits much of the success to an overall company philosophy that emphasizes the importance of servicing the needs of the local customer in North Carolina.
But how difficult is it to sell parts in the North Carolina area?
Other successful dealers in the North Carolina area say that it is a competitive area for parts sales. They credit their own success to their desire to use every tool offered to them, in addition to many of their companys' commitments to stocking above the needed inventory of parts. Other area dealers also credit their success to the use of tools such as a trailer manufacturer's computerized parts ordering system.
According to a CRTS company spokesperson, the CRTS location in Raleigh uses the Utility Trailer's Dealer Information System (DIS) on a full-scale basis. The system provides an automated approach to many of the restocking and order fulfillment issues that once required numerous employee hours to process.
A company spokesperson states that the CRTS parts operation isn't limited to centralized receiving and purchasing. Parts managers at the individual CRTS locations have to be the judge of their own requirements and needs.
The spokesperson explains that the markets served by CRTS are different in their needs for stocked parts. Their needs can range from a little diversity between some of the local service-only stores to some of the unusually diverse extremes that are between the Virginia and Carolina operations.
According to company officials, the parts inventories between the three states are different because the Carolinas use a large proportion of refrigerated and open-top trailer operations. The Virginia CRTS stores are mostly involved in the service of platforms and dry van trailers.
Company officials state that the bulk tanker parts and service field is an area that is exhibiting growth in the Carolinas. According to CRTS officials, an attempt to compete and service in that market has been met with success.
Cramped Beginnings Company officials describe the origins of the company as a desire that grew from an attempt to purchase several produce trailers in the early 1970s. During or shortly thereafter that purchasing process, Utility Trailers awarded a dealership concession to what is known today as CRTS for the Raleigh area.
Thus was born CRTS in October 1971. A company spokesperson says that the whole operation was conducted from a motel room near downtown Raleigh. In 1974, a facility was built for the company. That facility, after several expansions, was about 22,000 square feet.
Currently, CRTS has operations in North and South Carolina, as well as Virginia. That wasn't a bad way to check out of the old motel.