Truck Parts and Service | Heavy Duty Trucking, Aftermarket, Service Info
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24 Fulks says Meritor has a similar pro- tocol, and adds the company refuses to take credit for incomplete orders when calculating its 95-plus percent fi ll rate. "We have very high expectations for ourselves," he says. "If we ship nine SKUs and an order required 10, we give ourselves a 0 for that. We don't believe in taking credit for an order" that isn't completely fi lled. As the last step in order fulfi llment, Ford says delivery is one area where Power Train has recently focused its resources. The company recently added GPS to its delivery fl eet as a way to minimize driver downtime. "If a customer calls now and needs something immediately, we can get on the GPS and see we have a driver fi ve minutes away, call him and have him come pick it up and get back on the road in 15 minutes," Ford says. "We don't have to wait until [the driver] fi nishes his route anymore." Both Dorman and Meritor use LTL carriers for most of their delivery needs. Fulks says Meritor has same-day turnaround for all unit down rush orders submitted by 5 p.m. to its Kentucky loca- tion. Which means as long as a customer gets his order in by that time, the PDC team can get it picked, packaged and on an LTL trailer departing the facility later that night. From there, Fulks says the rush orders quickly travel to the LTL terminal where they are sorted, and sent back on the highway later that night for next-day delivery. Shultz says Dorman's carriers will leave trailers at its PDCs for loading during the day, and come switch out full loads for empty trailers as needed. Even Dorman's trailer loading process has been recently enhanced, he says. "We run conveyor lines directly into the back of trailers now. We used to place packages on pallets and have them delivered to the trailer, but that was an extra step because someone had to put them on [the pallet], transport them and then unload them," Shultz says. "Now they come off the conveyor, our [employees] put on the shipping labels and they go right back on [the conveyor]." Shultz says that's all part of Dorman's never-ending quest to build lean and ef- fi cient processes in its operation. "Small improvements made daily by every one of our employees will lead up to big changes," he says. Ford says Power Train tries to do the same thing for its customers. Because even if every order doesn't need to arrive today, that doesn't mean it can be late. "It all comes back to adding value," he says. "Anything we can do to make our business run better adds value for our customers." T R U C K P A R T S & S E R V I C E | J a n u a r y 2 0 1 5 Service Bay Products move through Dorman's warehouses quickly. Any rush order received by 7 p.m. is picked and shipped that day, the company says. Power Train stocks its facilities by product line and department so its team can quickly move through and complete orders.