Founded in 1888 and operated by 4th generation owners, Ashby Lumber serves the entire San Francisco Bay Area with locations in Berkeley and Concord, California. Ashby supplies contractors and homeowners with everything they need for residential and commercial remodeling, rebuilding, and renovation such as lumber, tools and hardware, doors, windows, paint, faucets, sinks, and toilets.
With the Demountable System downtime is now drive-time at Ashby. Bodies that stand independent of the truck on retractable legs are loaded throughout the day. When drivers arrive at the beginning of the day or return after their first run they always have a loaded body that's ready to go and can and depart within minutes. No more waiting!
Recently Gerry Hazzard, Demountable Concepts National Account Executive interviewed Cesar Garcia,
Dispatcher at Ashby Lumber about their implementation of the Swap Body System.
DELIVERY EFFICIENCY THAT IS HARD TO BEAT
GH: What kind of impact has switching to Demountable trucks had for your business compared to traditional straight trucks?
CG: The efficiency is hard to beat. As opposed to coming back and loading an empty truck we can now load an empty body while the other one is on the truck making deliveries. If a truck does have to come back and load up during day or for the next day, the extra body is ready to go. There are no time delays when loading product. It's pretty unbeatable to have everything loaded in the truck and just swap it out. The process of swapping a body is very fast and very efficient. After a short time the drivers become very familiar with it and they can come and go pretty quickly.
GH: Do you think you are able to deliver more by using Demountables?
CG: We can certainly do a lot more deliveries because we can continuously be on the road as opposed to being at the warehouse. The process of loading for us is very time consuming so as long as the driver can stay on the road more it works out great for us. That being said we can deliver more because we don't have to waste time loading. Being able to just come and go allows us to make more deliveries on the road as well as being faster and more efficient at the warehouse.
GH: Have you received any feedback from customers in regards to your ability to make more deliveries?
CG: The system allows us to provide the best possible service we can to the customer. It has made a huge impact to our sales team. The amount of customer service we can provide has increased dramatically. because of the efficiency... where we might have delivered 5 deliveries in a day...we can now make close to 10! Double of what we had normally been able to do. We are able to maximize our time, it makes a big difference!
A PROVEN DELIVERY SYSTEM
For over 30 years, Demountable Concepts has worked with millwork and lumber companies to help improve their bottom line and provide superior delivery service to their customers. With this proven delivery system companies are able to load and deliver product at the same time. Our current customers enjoy the following benefits:
The next time you evaluating the efficiencies of your delivery operation make sure the Demountable solution is a part of your discussion. The only thing left to do after that is pick up the phone and call us. You'll be thankful you did!
