Yancey Bros. Co. hosted a Savannah, Ga., parts operations open house event on April 2. Attendees stopped in to see the newly expanded parts order and pick up operation, which now consolidates parts for all of Yancey’s divisions, including construction equipment, engine, electric power and bus parts at the Savannah, Ga., location into one centralized facility. Lots of giveaways and door prizes were awarded during the event, and a barbecue lunch was served.
Andrea Clenny, Yancey Bros. Co., coordinated the parts consolidation.
She said that truck and bus parts, as well as generator parts, have now been moved into the earthmoving store, which consolidates earthmoving, generator, bus and truck parts and all parts personnel into one building. The parts for the Power Systems division had been previously stored in that facility’s shop area. After the move, the Power Systems service department gained three extra shop bays, giving Yancey Bros. Co. the space to work on more equipment.
“We had plenty of additional room in the parts department of the earthmoving store to add the bus and truck parts operations, and we actually have plenty more room for additional parts stocking growth at this location,” said Clenny.
Clenny said the parts consolidation has been in the planning stage for quite some time, culminating in the final move.
“It was a long four-week process. Not necessarily from the standpoint of simply relocating the parts, but with computer changes and parts ’tagging’ and combining. Some of the parts were actually stored in one place and on the database as being in both facilities.”
Clenny said the setup is more efficient.
“Not only did we gain three more shop bays in the power systems facility, we are finding the parts consolidation to be much more cost effective. It was a pretty simple decision that just made sense. We had the extra space in the parts department in the earth moving facility and we needed more space in the Power Systems facility. The area where the parts used to be stored in the Power Systems facility already had access to an overhead crane system. The whole process made for some long days. We actually got much more accomplished after hours as we all still had our regular jobs to accomplish during the business day.”
Clenny is responsible for the parts operations at the Savannah and Statesboro, Ga., locations. She said that the entire staff has pitched in at the Savannah location during the consolidation process. The company now has two in-house parts reps that are trained on construction equipment and two that are trained on power systems working together in the parts department.
Savannah is the first store to consolidate the parts operations, and will be closely monitored as a possible model for other locations.
“We finished this consolidation less than a week ago and many customers are already commented that they like the new system,” said Clenny.
“We’ve always done a good job in our parts operations, but now it is definitely more organized than ever before in Savannah. There is still more work to be done in perfecting, organizing and grouping Blue Bird bus and Cat parts together in one centralized location for maximum efficiency.”
Darin Moxley, general parts manager of all divisions, said parts operation was structured differently in the past.
“Yancey Power Systems was originally called Sunbelt Power when it was established many years ago. It was primarily set up for distribution and support for Caterpillar’s power generation products. Cat then entered the on-highway business, which then became a part of the portfolio for Sunbelt Power with support of the CAT engine business. This eventually became Yancey Power Systems. In the past, Power Systems and Yancey’s machine division ran virtually as two different companies. As we move into a new phase of the company, we’re looking to simplify and consolidate the on-highway Power Systems operation with the machine operations in locations where it just makes sense, but not necessarily in every city we’re in. In places that we’re able to consolidate parts and have the space and the resources to do so, we would like to provide a complete parts experience for our customer that would include anything from machine and off-highway parts to anything pertaining to power generation and on-highway parts for trucks and buses.
“The parts team here [Savannah] has spent a lot of hours over the last month working on completely moving and consolidating parts into one operation. I want to emphasize a couple points. We still have specialization of our parts counter staff that are highly experienced and focused on off-highway machine parts, and then we have counter staff members who are experienced and specialized on the on-highway products. We’re not trying to cross train everyone on everything, but they can work together and learn from each other and provide a better experience when the customer comes in. This will have more people on the parts counter that are cross-training and educating each other just by working side-by-side.
“We’ve been in the on-highway business for quite a number of years. I feel that in some areas we serve, we may not have done a great job of completely connecting with our off-highway customers. Many may not know of our capabilities and our expertise in what we can do for them for their on-highway products. We can provide parts and full service for just about any type of vehicle that they have whether it’s on or off road. The unique thing in what we’re doing here is that this is the first time that we’ve had one parts department that can do all of this for one customer in one place.”
Savannah is a one stop parts shop and can provide parts for the smallest piece of compact equipment to light and medium duty trucks and even parts for automotive applications to on-highway heavy class 8 trucks to school buses.
The Yancey Bros. Co. location in Savannah is made up of three buildings: one for earthmoving sales and service and all parts operations; one for hydraulic service; and one for the Power Systems division (bus, truck and generator).
For more information, visit www.yanceybros.com.
Today's top stories
