Building boom
Mar 1, 2008 12:00 PM
The Louisville operation has virtually no local sales operation. Its entire volume comes from national fleets that want equipment installed quickly and delivered through the OEM's transportation system.
The location has two speeds — fast and faster. It also has one shop for each speed.
The company's first shop had been a repair facility operated by Waste Management. After acquiring the 7,000-sq-ft building in 2002, Auto Truck more than doubled the size of the building, adding on 8,000 square feet before it began operations in 2003.
In 2005, Auto Truck acquired its “east plant,” a 15,000-sq-ft shop built on five acres. This plant specializes in quick turnaround jobs such as cab guard and toolbox installation. While some jobs performed at the east plant involve the installation of bodies — such as a recent order from Home Depot — most trucks can be completed in one or two hours.
“Orders for 100 or 200 trucks are not uncommon,” Jones says. “A lot of them are pickups that don't require a lot of work. Others, such as those we build for Home Depot, are a little more involved. In those cases, we bring together a team that really knows what the order requires so that even the more complicated orders can be completed quickly and efficiently.”
Back in Bensenville
Meanwhile, back in Bensenville, the company is planning to vacate the O'Hare Airport area for a new headquarters facility about 12 miles west of its present location.
The 105,000-sq-ft building is currently under construction on a 16-acre site in an industrial park in nearby Bartlett, Illinois. Plans call for the project to be complete in October.
“We will pick up a lot of space and efficiency,” says Jim Dondlinger, president. “It also will enable us to integrate our Aurora (Illinois) parts store into the new building. The building will have a big parts showroom that will have inventory displayed on mobile kiosks. When we need to use the area for meetings — and we have a lot of dinner meetings for our customers — we can move the displays and set up for the meetings.”
One of the more unusual features of the new location will be a 30' x 50' room that Dondlinger calls the design center. It will be located next to the conference rooms and the engineering department. The design center will help the customer know the details of his future truck.
“The goal is for the customer to leave with a detailed set of notes and drawings if necessary,” Dondlinger says. It's important that the customer knows exactly what he is getting.”
Engineering oriented
While the Louisville operation specializes in high-volume installations, the Chicago-area shop routinely produces highly custom work trucks built on medium- and heavy-duty chassis.
Dondlinger, a degreed engineer, places a great deal of emphasis on having the proper tools to design a truck that performs at or beyond customer expectations. The engineering department's arsenal includes finite element analysis software in addition to more conventional computer-aided design software.
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