CALEDONIA, Wis., September 7, 2007 A Wisconsin company is saving time and money with the Kenworth PremierCare® Connect parts management system.
The company using the online system is Amston Supply, which performs maintenance for companies operated by Hribar Companies. Hribar, a family-owned business founded in 1949, includes Hribar Trucking Inc., a local construction fleet of Kenworth T800s; Jim Halverson LLC, which operates T800s in its local fleet and Kenworth T600s in its over-the-road operation; and Amston Supply.
Amston Supply gets the job done efficiently and cost-effectively with Kenworth PremierCare Connect, a Windows-based program designed to optimize operations for fleets of all sizes. Connect links fleets to their preferred Kenworth dealers for quick, easy and virtually paperless inventory ordering and monitoring. In addition to electronic parts purchasing and preventive maintenance tracking and in-depth reporting, The system also provides multi-user, multi-location access and extensive training and technical support.
Kenworth PremierCare Connect is invaluable in the information it provides, said Kurt Freitag, Amston parts manager. It would be tough to survive without it.
For Amston Supply, fleet maintenance reporting is a key component of Connect. According to Freitag, Amston™s fleet maintenance customers use the program™s information for quoting jobs. We can extrapolate cost-per-mile reports on any piece of equipment. As equipment ages, we can figure the cost to maintain it and offer suggestions to our customers when the equipment should be retired, Freitag said.
Kenworth PremierCare Connect also reports maintenance histories for trucks that Amston services. Alerts about expiring equipment warranties are also available. From a fleet maintenance perspective, it™s hard to beat, Freitag said.
Amston also uses Kenworth PremierCare Connect for adjusting the company™s parts inventory. Our inventory tracking and availability has improved tremendously since launching the system in December 2003, Freitag said. The program allows us to calculate the number of inventory turns and shows us trends in parts usage. We™re running a leaner system now. Connect removes intuition from figuring out your inventory. We now have an idea of inventory value that we didn™t have before.
In addition, Freitag uses Connect to help measure labor costs and productivity. The reports help us keep an eye on the profitability of parts and labor, he said. We can break out counter sales and work-order invoices, and we can track technicians™ productivity.
Freitag said Amston Supply™s number of parts department employees has remained the same, even though Amston is handling more inventory and doing 11% more parts business this year over 2006.
It™s just another reason why this Wisconsin company plans to keep benefiting from Kenworth PremierCare Connect in the future.
Kenworth Truck Company, a division of PACCAR Inc, is a leading manufacturer of heavy and medium duty trucks. Kenworth is the recipient of the 2007 J.D. Power and Associates awards for Highest in Customer Satisfaction for Over The Road, Pickup and Delivery and Vocational Segment Class 8 trucks. Kenworth™s Internet home page is at www.kenworth.com. Kenworth. The World™s Best.