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FABCO
Behind the Scenes—FABCO serves clients with the help of ToolWatch software
Situation
As the sole Caterpillar dealer for Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, FABCO serves everyone from homeowners with weekend home improvement projects to large corporations repaving the areas major roadways. Offering equipment rentals, sales and repairs, the company manages the full scope of equipment needs for all these clients. From Caterpillar tractors and excavators to scrapers and loaders, FABCO has it and is the trusted source in its region.
The Milwaukee branchs team of 35 service technicians maintains rental equipment and items purchased by clients, often heading out to the clients own jobsites to troubleshoot problems in the field. Making sure their clients equipment is working means theyll have satisfied customers wholl come back to buy or rent again. The service departments tool room manages the tools these technicians use to repair equipment. Technicians may need just one of the thousands of tools in the room; they may need a whole assembly. They may need the tools for fifteen minutes; they may need them for more than a week.
One tool room attendant, Jerry Lubbert, is responsible for making sure these tools are available to the service technicians when they need them, and for making sure they come back for the next person when the job is complete. But with thousands of tools and 35 technicians, keeping track of whats where when is a tricky proposition.
Solution
Luckily for Lubbert, who has been with the company since 1967, FABCO started using ToolWatch seven years before he moved into the tool room. When he started managing the tools a year ago, this powerful software program was already in place to help him keep the tool room running smoothly. ToolWatch helps him track his warehouse full of hydraulic impact wrenches, specialized sockets, torque wrenches, pullers, jacks and gauges so he can get them to his men, and they can get to work on clients repairs.
Most of the tools have a number assigned by CAT, but Lubbert assigns them each a separate ToolWatch number to input into the database. This gives technicians two separate places to look up the tool they need to locate. This is especially helpful when they need to locate an item the company seldom uses. Since these highly specialized tools are often quite expensive, often just one FABCO branch keeps one in their tool room. But ToolWatch allows Lubbert to assign these tools a number even if they are located at another branch. That way, he can find them and have them transferred immediately when theyre needed.
Were able to put our fingers on it real quick—something like a specialized puller used for taking a component off of an engine. We rebuild engines all the time, but there are many different kinds of engines. Some of them have specialized procedures that require specific tools that we only use occasionally, said Lubbert.
Using ToolWatch means these rarely used items are easy to find, and checking one out never keeps an employee waiting to start his repair job. The same applies for tools FABCO makes itself. When an employee comes up with a better way of doing a job, theyll often design a special tool to help them. ToolWatch gives them a way to catalog the tool, naming and coding it so it can be retrieved later without difficulty.
ToolWatch even helps with consumable inventory, so Lubbert can track the supply levels and make appropriate orders. The system ensures the tool room always has drill bits and saw blades ready to go out on a job.
Result
Between helping technicians find the tools they need with ease and ensuring consumables are ordered strategically and always kept in stock, ToolWatch makes life in the FABCO tool room a whole lot easier.
But the ultimate goal of the tool room is the same as any FABCO employee—making customers happy. Since ToolWatch helps Lubbert and his team run a smoothly functioning tool room, that goal is always within reach. Service technicians quickly get the tools they need and get out to client sites to do their jobs. Its that high level of service that keeps FABCO clients coming back for more equipment. And, behind the scenes, its ToolWatch that helps them reach that goal.
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