Not willing to rest on its established position as the third-oldest Caterpillar dealer, Carolina Cat has taken a deep dive into what makes customers come back.
It engaged a lean consulting company at the beginning of this year, with an eye toward customer service improvement. Processes reviewed included how jobs are quoted; ordering, staging and delivering parts; and service bay and yard layouts.
“The program is really rooted in enabling our frontline employees to make more decisions,” says Mike Tropsha, vice president, general manager – construction. Instead of solving problems in the boardroom or at the manager level, Carolina Cat went to its technicians and parts employees, who make up over half of its workforce.
“We’re not making widgets,” Tropsha says. “Repairs differ in scope and complexity, and customers have varied needs. There are, however, many lean principles that we can apply to our business to drive growth while serving the needs of our customers and employees.”
The company started using visual management boards, a lean manufacturing tactic that highlights a technician team’s progress on safety, quality, delivery/velocity and cost. Under the microscope: rework, the backlog of work orders, how quickly the work is completed and any safety issues.
