Tri Parts and Service, a division of Tri Supply and Equipment of New Castle, Del., has moved from its current location at 831 South Dupont Parkway to 1685 River Road in New Castle.
The new 25,000-sq.-ft facility, located on 25 acres, boasts a 5,000-sq.-ft. parts department that will allow the company to store more items, especially heavy line units it couldn’t carry before. The increased inventory will enable the company to provide better service to current and new customers.
“We carry everything from a hydraulic motor for 100,000-pound excavators down to a throttle cable for a lawn engine. There’s little stuff for chainsaws and lawn thatchers in addition to backhoe glass. We’ll be able to pinpoint a customer that will use two track motors a year and hold it for them,” said John Green, parts manager.
“We outgrew the [South Dupont Parkway] property two years ago. The shop had enough room to get two backhoes in at the most. The mechanics were working outside on anything larger than a backhoe,” explained Neal Messick, co-owner with Keith Baker and David Curran, of Tri Supply and Equipment.
The parts and service department was the first to move to the new location and having the parts and service under one roof provides the efficiency that Tri Supply and Equipment sought.
“All our parts were stored in sea containers outside. We actually experienced loss due to broken glass and hoses due to the heat and cold.
Now mechanics come in and give their orders to our parts staff who walk into another room, grab parts and come right back. The new facility allows us to stock more parts and beef up our inventory,” said Messick.
“We have stores in Dover Del., Salisbury Md., and one opening soon in Oxford, Pa. Their trucks had to come up everyday to pick up supplies to keep up their store inventory. The bulk of the materials are here. We have a forty-five foot flatbed that we’re running daily to each store. The new facility saves them from having to send a truck and a driver up everyday and sometimes twice a day,” Messick said.
In addition, the larger facility enables customers to get in and out more easily. At the old facility, there was an instant traffic jam if there were two or three tractor-trailers making deliveries and a customer loading or unloading a piece of equipment.
“Having the acreage and everything to support the size of equipment we’re working on is half the battle,” said Scott Clark, service manager.
“Whether it’s a homeowner calling in for a chain for his chainsaw, or whether it’s the owner of a large construction company, we treat them all the same. If you take care of your customer, he comes back,” explained Green.
Currently, the company has three employees working the phones and one outside representative. Three employees are full time in the warehouse. In addition, there are eight mechanics with the possibility of the company hiring two or three more.
“We have six road mechanics available 24/7. They are all phone dispatched and ready to go with cranes, lighting and welding, the whole nine yards. There’s nothing that we cannot tackle,” said Clark.
“Our mechanics have one to seven years of experience in the field and training on brand name equipment such as Ingersoll Rand, JCB, and Bandit. In addition, factory representatives come out and give us the software that we need. Our mechanics all have wireless laptops so they can access everything from wiring diagrams to tech Web pages We’re not averse to helping a customer out with a part off one of our units. To get them up and running is our first concern,” Clark said.
Tri Supply and Equipment lines include JCB, Ingersoll Rand, Bandit, Grout Hog, Honda power equipment, Stihl, and Briggs and Stratton.
“We have everything,” concluded Green. CEG
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