Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/141668
Building On a Good Thing Best Practices Nortrax Miami cares for employees, serves market better by starting over – with a brand new facility. By Kim Phelan Nortrax Regional Vice President Mike Festing-Smith (left) and Miami General Manager Eny Sanchez led the do-over design of the local branch, keeping safety and customer service excellence on the front burner all the way. Why would any dealer management in its right mind elect to tear down and rebuild a branch during the Great Recession – and in one of the worst-struck U.S. regions, South Florida? And not merely rebuild, but overdesign for the environmental comfort and safety of the company's employees – at a time when most dealerships were shedding employees. But Nortrax wasn't nuts. There's only one thing this manufacturerowned John Deere dealer loves more than serving the needs of customers, executives say, and that's taking care of the people – whom they call teammates – who work for them. For that reason, its old, inadequate Miami facility, which sat on the lowest, muddiest surface in the neighborhood, climbed to the head of the line for Deere capex priority during the very bottom of the downturn, and the project turned into an opportunity to do the right thing on many levels. From a purely pragmatic perspective, the old branch had outgrown its space limitations. "If you think about it, we were working at maximum capacity at the lowest part of the economy," said Mike Festing-Smith, vice president of the company's Southeast region. "What was going to happen when it started coming back? We were really going to be in a pinch. So, we had to look ahead to when the growth was coming back, and how were we going to accommodate it." The old service department had only two-and-a-half functioning service bays where technicians could work on equipment, but because the roof was too low to accommodate more contemporary-sized excavators or ADTs, for example, techs were frequently performing their diagnostics and repairs outside the shop, in wet and sloppy – not to mention humid – conditions. Cramped as they were, however, space was, frankly, the least of the branch's issues. How bad was it? "Whenever it would rain, water would literally come in to our offices about 6 inches to a foot high, probably once or twice a year," said Miami Branch General Manager Eny Sanchez. "So total business destruction, totally Eny Sanchez is glad his new office will never flood again. unsafe, and a huge mess to clean up. "When we made the decision to [rebuild]," he added, "we were going to be on the highest point around, and invest in the drainage so any drop of water that would land on our property would get taken care of. We complied, obviously with state and local drainage requirements, but we really overdesigned it because we know what kind of issued we can have when we flood." Sanchez says that while Nortrax has a set template, a box if you will, for its branch designs, there was plenty of room for customization and out-ofthe box thinking within the prescribed guidelines. Cameras and fencing outdoors provide security, while indoors, a host of new creature comforts make coming to work a pleasant experience for the 25 employees of Nortrax Miami. These include open spaces, orderly storage, abundant lighting, shop exhaust-extractor fans, multiple dock heights at the delivery ramp, a convenient parts slide from which to bring inventory down from a mezzanine-level storage area, and a large, modern lunch/break room. But long before the gift of a brand new workplace was given to them, the team in Miami has been performing their duties safely. One might even say perfectly. Next month, the branch will 60 | www.cedmag.com | Construction Equipment Distribution | July 2013 60_Best_Practices_Feature_KP.indd 60 6/27/13 2:25 PM